


The Spiderling Named Peter Parker

by Viet_joker



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AHDH, Alternate Universe, Anxiety, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky and Steve have a strong bromance, Ceiling Vent Clint Barton, Deaf Clint Barton, Fix-It, I do what I want, I like em long, JARVIS AND VISION ARE BROTHERS, Mama Spider protecting her spiderling, Plot is somewhere out yonder, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Prob gonna be a long fic, Slow Build, The twins are on vacation, Tony Stark Has A Heart, excuse the bad grammar, feel good fic, fidget toys, let me live
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2018-10-26 05:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 55,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10780524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viet_joker/pseuds/Viet_joker
Summary: “Sir, I've found something rather odd,” Jarvis interrupts. “There seems to be gradual levels of radiation increasing down on the first floor.” Jarvis hums in interest.“Radiation as in someone came from a CT scan or radiation as in-” Tony thumbs at Bruce.“ It’s rather odd, sir.”Or the one where the Avengers witness Peter's change and unofficially adopt a spider child.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heyy, you guys should read Damaged Defenders if ya hadn’t. I just finished it in two days and it gave me good feels. Also, some notes before you read:  
> Peter is a sophomore (10th grade) in high school. Here’s the cast list:  
> Tom Holland as Peter P.  
> Emma Stone as Gwen S. (younger since they’re in 10th grade)  
> Sally Field as May P.  
> Martin Sheen as Ben P  
> James Franco as Harry O.  
> Chris Zylka as Flash T.  
> Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: 5/10/17
> 
> Making some slight changes. Nothing major. Just the pretense, lmao. From past to present. I always write in past tense so i want to make myself uncomfortable and do it in present tense so it forces myself to pay more attention.

“Peter! You’re going to be late!” Aunt May shouts at the boy’s door. “I’m coming in!” she sighs and with a shake from her head, she opens the door. She fully prepares to yank the boy out of his bed only to find the room completely empty. She throws her arms up. “So he has enough energy to wake up in the morning and leave for the trip but any other day he struggles. That boy.” she shakes her head again and starts picking up a few articles of clothing on the ground and throws them in the hamper.

After cleaning up the boy’s room she gathers the hamper and carries it downstairs. She spots her husband, Ben, at the table with a box of things he most likely dug up from the basement.

“Oh, Ben Parker don’t you even think about leaving that filthy box in my kitchen.” May gripes at Ben.

The man looks down, taking a bit of offense to that. “These are my bowling trophies.”

“Oh...by all means, leave that filthy box in my kitchen.” she rolls her eyes as she set the hamper down by the washer.

“Why don’t you have Peter wash his own clothes. He’s going to have to learn to do it himself after all,” Ben says.

“I did let him, _once_. All of the whites went grey,” May huffs out as she points at his chest. Ben glances down to his grey wife beater underneath his shirt.

“Oh, right.” he remembers now, the perpetrator had been _his_ beanie.  

“Have you figured out what’s wrong with the leak in the basement?” May asks as she searches through Peter’s clothes for anything before chucking it in the washer.

“Uncle Ben! It’s not the condenser tray! It’s too much water! Or the heat exchange tubing!” May hears her nephew, Peter, shouting out from the basement. “I think it’s the fill line.”

“Peter Parker, i thought you left by now! You’re going to miss your big trip today!” May gasps.

“It’s fine Aunt May, i’m leaving now!” Peter dashes out of the basement and slips due to his wet feet. The poor boy smacks his forehead on the ground.

“Oh, Peter!” May ran over to her nephew. “Are you alright?” she gently smooths his hair out of the way. That will bruise for sure. “You need to be careful, sweetie.”

“Sorry Aunt May.” Peter cradles his forehead.

“C’mon kid, I’ll drop ya off,” Ben says as he slips some shoes on and grabs his keys. “Stay away from the basement okay, honey?”

“Don’t worry, i won’t go near it.” May waves Peter off and let the boy wipe his bare feet off and slip his socks and shoes. Peter snatches his backpack with his notebook inside.

“Bye Aunt May!” he exclaims as he ran out the door. May smiles and waves the two off.

**.:.~0~.:.**

“You think you can fix the leak downstairs?” Ben asks Peter.

“Yeah, i can stop by the hardware store after the trip while i’m in the city already. Gwen said she can take me home. So i don’t think she’ll mind going around. Pretty sure she’s going to stop by that one restaurant she likes and get something to go.”

“Alright, be careful in the city,” Ben says as he pulls up to the high school.

“I will, thanks Uncle Ben!” Peter says as he steps out of the car and made his way in school. They were suppose to head straight to the cafeteria and wait there. He spots Gwen sitting with Harry. Harry notices his friend approaching and waves.

Peter bounds over to his friends and then promptly shoved into a table a few moments after. He glances and sees Flash giving him a look before glaring.

“Watch it, Parker.” he huffs and walks off. Huh, normally Flash would’ve taunted him more. Not that Peter was complaining. He wastes no time and made his way over to Gwen and Harry, who had been glaring at Flash.

“You okay Pe--dude what happened to your face?” Harry winces as he saw the blossoming bruise forming on his forehead.

“Uh, i tripped and hit my head...on the floor.” he says sheepishly. Harry shakes his head as Gwen just stares at him in exasperation. They both know Peter is clumsy.

“Excited Peter?” Gwen asks, changing the subject. Peter's class was lucky enough to get a tour through Oscorps _and_ Stark industry. Peter had asked Gwen to pinch him several times to see if he was dreaming or not because this was going to be the best day ever.  

“Yes. I’m so ready.” Peter smile stretches across his face. Hes bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.

“Please tell me you brought your little gidget tube thing.” Harry gives him a look.

“Fidget Cube, Harry.” Peter corrects him. Harry just gives him a look that says ‘does it look like i care. ‘

“Alright kids, the bus is waiting for us in the front, line up with your classes and please be in groups of two or threes,” one of the teachers, Mrs Mathews, says.

“Done and done.” Gwen rises up from the chair and slings her bag over her arm. “Let’s go, the only one i’m excited for is Oscorps and i want to be there yesterday.” she says as she drags the two quickly to the bus.

“Oh, excited for an Os are we?” Harry teases. Gwen smacks him in his arm.

“Behave.”

**.:.~0~.:.**

“Psst. I think Pete’s nerdgasming everywhere.” Harry whispers to Gwen as were walking into the lab and observing the hologram. Gwen holds in a laugh when she saw how Peter’s eyes light up so much.

“I am too, i have a possible internship here in the future. This place is amazing.” Gwen is in awe at everything around her.

“Thanks, i’ll make sure my father knows.” Harry grins.

“And i want to create a world without weakness.” Dr. Conners voice interrupts them. The man takes a pause in his lecture. “Anyone care to venture just how?” a boy from another science class rose his hand. “Yes?”

“Stem cells?” he asks.

“Promising, but the solution i’m thinking of is more radical.” he answers the boy. He looks around for another hand. “No one?”

“Cross species genetics.” Peter murmurs out loud to himself, though Dr. Conners hears it. The class parts away like the red sea, all eyes on Peter. “ _Uh_ , well, person gets Parkinson's when the brain cells that produce dopamine start to disappear, but the Zebrafish has the...ability to regenerate cells on command. If you could somehow give this ability to the person, then that's that. They’re curing themselves.”

“Yeah, you just have to look past the gills on their neck.” Harry jokes. Everyone laughs. Peter gives a sad look to Harry.

Dr. Conners stares at the boy. “And you are…?”

“Mid-town’s best and brightest. _Second_ in his class.” Gwen answers with a smile before Peter could say his name.” Peter shoots Gwen an offended look, making her smirk even more.

Conner smiles and just as he’s about to ask the boy his name, his pager went off. “And that’s my pager telling me something happened in one of the labs conducting an experiment. I’ll leave you to your tour guide.” he smiles, giving Peter one last look before leaving.

Gwen drops her smile when Dr. Conners left and the tour continues. She pinches herself. Why didn’t she say anything? Peter already left an impression on the man.

Damn you Peter.

She chews at her lip.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry notices the sad look on Peter’s face when Gwen ignores him and went ahead with the tour. He rolls his eyes at the both of them. Nerds,  _ geez _ . The trip isn’t going to be so fun anymore.

Then an idea comes to him.

Harry grins as he quietly hang around the back a bit as the large group gathers around a large hologram in the middle of the room. He catches up to Gwen and grabs her hand. When she looks up he holds a finger to his lips and walks around, letting the group go ahead of them. He then catches Peter by the collar of his neck and slaps a hand over his mouth before he yelps out and pulls the two off to the side.

“ _ This is Oscorp’s tree of life.”  _ the computer announces.

“My dad said if we could slip away from the tour group, we could check out stuff behind the scenes. Most of the stuff being showed is more like level one and two stuff.”

Peter and Gwen look at each other.

“--I’m down.” “--Are you sure it's okay?” Peter and Gwen say at the same time.

“ _ Alright _ Peter.” Harry smiles and claps him on the shoulder. “Gwen?” he asks. The look on her faces tells Harry she needs more convincing. “It’s okay. Pete and I will just go without you.” he says with a sad sigh.

“Alright, and now i’ll take you to the bioreactor room now. Follow me.” the tour guide says. Harry takes the chance and slips away. Gwen looks at Harry and Pete and back at the tour group, chewing her lip. She rolls her eyes.

“Wha-wait up!” she whispers angrily. “This is  _ stupid _ . I better not lose my internship at all.”

“Yet you’re coming with us.” Harry points out. Gwen glares and  pouts. She’s really curious.

“C’mon. I’ll show you something Oscorp had been working on.” Harry leads the two around and down the hall. He stops when one of the workers were at the door, entering the pattern lock. Peter and Gwen looked around him. The workers in the room before had came out just as he walks in, both leaving the room all together.

“We’re--”

“C’mon.” Harry says when the coast was clear. Harry tries and fails to enter the pattern code and curses himself. 

“Here, let me--” Peter quickly enters the pattern code and the lock clicks open. Harry raises his eyebrow at this. Peter give his friend an innocent look.

“What?”

“Sure.” he huffs and opens the door.

“This is the biocable.” Gwen is in awe. Harry and Gwen look around the room and watch the machine what looks to be weaving the biocable. 

“Apparently it’s still in production. A lot of iffs are still in the chemical makeup of what they’re wanting it to be, but they’re close,” Harry says.

“Whoa, what’s this room?” Harry and Gwen turn around. They see Peter peering into a door in the back of the room. The room inside look to be filled with blue light. Or was it blacklight?

“Uh, dunno. But that looks like a blacklight so i’m going to take it as a ‘ _ i’m not going in there,”  _ Harry says to Peter, “But  _ you _ can.” Harry finishes with a mischievous smile. He leads Peter closer and opens the latch, pushing him inside and then closing it right after.

Peter’s eyes widen and he twirls around. Harry does a shooing motion for Peter to go ahead. 

The boy turns back around slowly and observes. There were moving walls going around in a circle, webs running up and down that fills the wall with webs. He peers harder at what the little things crawling and recognizes them. 

They’re spiders! He loves spiders. 

He steps inside when he found an opening and takes a closer look.

“This is so cool,” Peter says to himself. So the biocable is being produced from spiders. No surprise there. But there were probably hundreds of them here, all look to be organized too.

Peter stupidly plucks a thick strand of the webbing and a whirring sound stirs to life. His eyes widens. Ah he fucked up didn’t he? He snaps his head up and sees the arms that were once idle move and twirl the strands of webbing about, disturbing the spiders. Oh shit, oh shit.

The spiders fell, right on top of him. Peter stays still for a moment and then starts wiggling about, shaking the spiders off him. He swats the ones crawling on him off until he’s sure they were all off. Peter let out a breath and carefully made his way out of the ring and back toward the door where Harry looks like he wants to burst out laughing and Gwen looks real worried. 

“That was terrifying.” Peter gasps when he slipped back through the door. “Dude, lets go back.” 

“Yeah, let’s head back before the teachers notice.” Harry agrees. Gwen sighs in relief. This had been thrilling and terrifying at the same time. She follows after Harry, Peter behind her. She didn’t notice him swiping a few pellets of the biocable from the discarded pile.

“I both hate and love you for that, Harry.” Peter grumbles as he catches up to them. Harry smiles. It didn’t take them long to smoothly return back into the group, though Mrs. Mathews did notice and walks up to them.

“And exactly where have you three been?” she asks. 

“Uh-” Harry starts before Gwen interrupts him. 

“Harry was nice enough to find the bathroom for me. Peter had to go as well.” she smiles innocently. “Had a little surprise. We’re sorry for not informing you.” The teacher gives them a look and accepts the lie.

“Well, alright then. Such a gentleman are we, Mr. Osborn?” the teacher smiles.

“Ah, yes ma’am.” Harry offers his rich kid smile that buys a lot of people.

“ _ Ah _ !” they heard from Peter “--choo!” he finishes. All three turn to Peter, who quickly angles his head into the side of his arm, hand reaching around back. They give the boy an odd look. The teacher just gives the boy a concerned look. 

“Bless you, Peter,” Gwen says softly.

“Mr. Parker, if you aren’t feeling well at all, i can escort you back to the bus--”

“No, no! I’m fine. I was just helping my uncle with a leak this morning was all.” Peter gives her a smile. “I’m good.” She sighs and shakes her head before ushering them back to the group.

Gwen elbows Peter in the side, causing the boy to hiss in pain. 

“ _ Achoo? Really?” _ Gwen bites out at him

“ _ Actually _ that’s how i got my bruise. My uncle woke me up early to try and fix the leak. Before leaving for school i kinda dashed up the stairs and my feet were soaked and i slipped and hit my head on the ground.” Peter babbles. 

“Pete, you gotta be more careful. Try to make it to senior year.” Harry teases his friend. 

“Yeah, yeah i’m working on it.” Peter shoves his hands in his pockets.

They continue on with the tour. Peter searches the back of his neck for something but didn’t find anything at all.

Even after that slightly terrifying incident, Peter is still in awe of every single room they go in. Peter shoots off so many questions the teacher had to calm him down. The others in the class snickers at him. Harry just places his head into his head. Gwen, though, only looks at him sympathetically as she sees Peter’s face turn red from embarrassment. Her brows furrow for a moment before relaxing.

“Well, now we know why he’s second in school. Unlike some others,” Gwen mentions politely outloud. Some of the scientists working snorts at her comment, some others let out a chuckle before clearing their throat and went back to work. This makes Gwen and Peter feel a bit better. The other students looks away in shame. 

“She has a point.” a voice says, making Harry snap his head up. It was his dad, Norman Osborn. Standing there in all his glory with a grin on his face. “The point, to all of these--” he twirls his hand around “--field trips is to learn. To be  _ exposed  _ to something new and ask as much questions as possible.” Norman puts his hands in his pockets as he looks at the kids. “I know most of you kids always depend on that one person in class to ask the most questions because you either are too afraid to ask, or don’t know it at all. Norman Osborn.” he introduces himself.  “It’s very nice to meet you kids.”

Norman Osborn spoke, talking about his corporation and his research. Harry looks at his father completely baffled.

“I thought you said he was sick,” Peter whispers to him.

“I thought so too. Guess he got better.” he mutters. 

**.:.~0~.:.**

When the tour was over, they waited in the lobby as the bus rolled around to pick them up. Peter had been bouncing up and down his feet, absolutely ecstatic.

“That was so cool!!” Peter exclaims. “I have so much information to write down. I just hope i remember everything.”

“You nerd,” Harry chuckles fondly at him.

“Son!” Norman Osborn called out to Harry as he approached him and Peter. Gwen at the moment had stepped aside to talk to a teacher after they learned about her internship in the future. “Sorry about pulling the disappearing act all week. Health had been up and down lately. I’m glad i could make it today.” he smiled. 

“Glad you’re feeling better Dad.” Harry says honestly. 

“And this must be Peter.” Norman reached his hand out and shook the boy’s hand. “Heard so much about you.”

“It’s a great honor to meet you sir.” Peter’s smile could blind a person.

“Harry tells me you’re quite the science wiz. I’m always looking for talented student such as you and Gwen.” Norman says to the boy.

“I just have to say, i read all of your research on nanotechnology. Well, i’m not quite through with it all but i’m working on it and did a thesis over it for my AP science class.” Peter vomits out.

“And you understand it?” Norman says with slight shock. “You’re parents must be so proud.” 

Peter stutters at this. “I-uh, live with my aunt and uncle. They are proud.” he smiles timidly.

“Boys, it’s time to go!” one of the other teachers, Mr. Mascuilli calls out.

“It’s really nice to meet you sir.” Norman nods at this and let the boys go. 

“Hope to see you again.” he bids them farewell.

“He doesn’t seem so bad,” Peter says as soon as they were out of earshot.

“Yeah, not if you’re a genius. He looked like he wanted to adopt you,” Harry says. Peter just laughs at this and finally boards on the bus. As soon as he sits down, he takes his notebook out and starts scribbling down as much info as possible from about everything he could remember and anything interesting he had seen today.

“Oh, Peter. I thought you might appreciate some information packets they were happy to provide for the teachers. I think you’d enjoy them more than i would,” Mrs Mathews says. Peter’s eyes lit up.

“Thank you so much.” he takes the papers with glee, causing the woman to chuckle. Gwen also received information packets as well.

“One down, one more to go.” Harry says as he slips his headphones on. Gwen does the same and read over the packets.

Peter doesn’t bother with his (he broke his) and kept on jotting down as much as he can remember. He also threw in sketches of equipment they showed, etc. The bus is loud, so he could bounce his leg up and down as much as he could without bothering anyone.

Peter isn’t ashamed to start highlighting inside the packet.

“Dude did you bring different colored highlighters?” Harry comments when he sees Peter pull a pack out.

“Yeah,” he says as if it were obvious. Harry shakes his head.

“Stupid question, of course,” he says and goes back to his music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you can tell so far, i took some of the script from the OG Spider-Man movie and Amazing Spider-Man. I had to make a separate file of notes for this story.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit shorter than the others. My apologies. I try to keep it at a minimum of 1,500 words per chapter.

It takes them about forty minutes to reach Stark tower. Most of them are excited just to potentially see an Avenger. Peter doesn’t really care about that. Of course seeing the Iron Man suit would be great, he just really wants to see Tony Stark. Peter decides to just focus on seeing as much as possible. Like with how Gwen’s excitement with seeing Oscorps, Peter’s dream is to nab an internship with Stark Industries.

“Now, before we get off the bus, we’ve been warned on several things. For safety reasons only and to get in much quicker, please leave your belongings in your bags. Mr. Stark has been nice enough to offer us lunch at his food hall so no money is required. If you want, bills only. Cell phones can be brought in with you but you are warned to not take any photos or stream anything live at all. If you do, don’t be surprised to find your phone hacked into and bugged with a virus.” the last sentence cause everyone to slip their phone back into their bags or shut them off completely.  “Good, now let's go. I’m sure a lot of you are starving.” Mrs. Mathews smiles.

 The food halls were enormous, and the food being served are practically a buffet style but they get it for you. Peter didn’t know nor does he care, he just wants food. He forgot to eat breakfast and Mr. Stark is filthy rich so Peter is positive he won’t even put a dent in his pocket at all. Peter immediately dashes when the teacher lets them loose, piling the food on his plate, grabbing extra rolls and sandwiches and pasta.

Peter chooses a random table and sits down, chowing down on his food.

“Good lord, Pete. You sure you can finish all of that?” Harry comments as he sat down with his food and looks at Peter in disgust when the boy practically squirrels his food into his mouth. Gwen plops down with her plate.

“Don’t you dare speak.” Gwen warns him when Peter looks up at her. “Here, got you some extra water. You look like you’ll need it.” he nods at her.

The disgust on Harry’s face slowly morphs from awe, back to disgust and then concern when Peter went back for a third plate. The guy running the line had glared at Peter for going back a third time so the boy just sat his ass down with his third plate and deals with the persistent appetite.  

"You okay Pete?" Gwen asks when she notices him bouncing his leg up and down.

"Hm? Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Why'd you ask?" Peter clasps his hands together, though his leg is still shaking.

"Because you're sweating and moving the table, _stop."_ She kicks his shin. "Where's your little cube?"

"In my backpack on the bus," Peter grumbles as he wipes the sweat away and winces when he accidentally touches the bruise.

"And your ring?" Gwen asks as she peels her tangerine.

"Flash thought it'd be funny to watch it melt in chemistry. It was funnier watching him get chewed out by the teacher and principle though." Peter grins.  

“It was funny to see that ring burn.” Harry snickers and stops when he saw the look on his face. He sniffs. “Sorry.”

“It was pretty cool.” Peter quietly agrees with him. Harry snorts.

"Alright kids, you have about five more minutes to finish, and when you're done please line up near the entrance of the food hall and please don't be in the way of the workers." Mr. Mascuilli announced. "Remember to clean up after yourselves and don't leave a mess."

"Hey I'm going to try and swipe some more food." Peter tells Gwen and takes off towards the the plates of cake and rolls. He’s making a dash toward his goal before his vision started to double. Peter swears as he stumbles and leans against a wall, trying to blink the dizziness away.

Okay, maybe going in for fourths is a bad idea? Or good? But he ate a lot of sugar so he doubts he's low on that.  What the crap?

"Honey are you alright?" A voice spooks him from nearly falling over. He doesn’t bother to look up for fear of doubling over.  

"Y-yeah. I'm fine. Just a head rush is all," Peter says to her. "I'm just going to go back with my class." He waves over toward the direction of the students forming a line. He inhales and exhales slowly, tries opening his eyes, but the brightness of everything made him wince.  

"Yeah, you don't look a hundred percent. C'mon, let's go to the infirmary and we'll get you back with your class as soon as we can, alright? My friend will let your teacher know." Peter didn’t even register the man that stands near her.  

"But I don't--"

"The more you talk the less time there is to get you to the nurses and out." She smiles at him. Peter sighs in defeat and nods. "Don't worry, we'll take the elevators. We shouldn't take long. You think you can walk?"

"If I have this wall I can." He snarks out before he could stop. "Uh-I mean--" the lady chuckles.  

"Here, hold onto me." She loops her arm around his. They both take off toward the elevator.

Peter doesn’t say anything when her grip on him is rather tight. He’s just too busy trying to not fall over. Once they step through the elevator, he takes that chance to lean against the back just as the man from before slipped through.

"Jarvis,” the lady says. Then the elevator starts _talking._

 _"Right away."_ Peter clenches his fists on the rails when he felt soreness all over his body and it gradually getting a bit worse.

"How are ya feeling, kid?" The guy asks.  

"Ah, you know. Fine. Just fine," Peter breathes out. The guy frowns. He didn't get the chance to say anything when the elevator opens about four or five seconds later. Not saying anything, the guy just puts his arm around him and walks him out of the elevator and towards what Peter assume would be the infirmary.  

He would love to bug out seeing the labs they’re walking passed if it weren't for the fact he’s still fighting the feeling to keel over. Super.

"So what's your name?" The lady asks. Oh, right.  

"Peter Parker." He answers her. She nods.  

"Names Clint." The guy introduces himself. The lady mutters _Natasha_.

Peter's heart leaps to his throat as soon as he steps in and spots Dr. Bruce Banner typing away and Mr. Stark beside him.

"Good, he's here. Hey kid. Wanna tell me why you're setting my alarms off?" Mr. Stark turns around and asks him. The look on his face must've answered for him. "Do you know what's going on?" Mr. Stark’s face morphs into concern.

"Uh-n-no Mr. Stark." Peter manages to say. Mr. Stark stepped away from the screen, showing him a scan of Peter with the words "RADIATION DETECTED." Peter's jaw drop, then his stomach.

Because the only thing he can think of that would be the culprit is that spider bite.  

A _radioactive_ spider.

 _“I’mnotgonnasproutoutextralegsami?!”_ Peter’s voice cracks out in a panic. “Ohh no, oh no, oh no Aunt May and Uncle Ben are going to kill me.” he babbles.

"Tony!" Dr. Banner snaps at him. "Peter, don't worry. We're just going to have you lie down on the table here and we'll figure out what's going on, alright? It’s probably nothing. Do you trust me?" The man asks. Peter nods. "Great. Let's get you on the table."

The man, Clint, lifts Peter up with no notice and whistles.  

"Too light, kid." Clint steps back.  

“ _Rude_ ,” he mumbles.


	4. Chapter 4

People made quick assumptions that Tony Stark hates all kids.  

Which, to some part is true. Tony just hates bratty kids that waste their potential.

To put it simply he hates brats that do nothing but party, do drugs and are just a plain leech to society. Brats like them grow into bigger brats and just do nothing with their lives. He loathes those that take advantage of others. Kids or adult.

He does, however, love kids that are gifted with knowledge and wants to use that gift to help out others and help out the world with whatever they can. Those are the ones that he wants to influence. Why do you think he gives a lot of lectures in schools? He wants to inspire them and as they grow older, he wants to give them a chance and funds their project. Any unshined diamond he’s going to swoop down and pluck them before anyone else does.

Pepper doesn’t even need to remind him a group of students from mid-town high are coming to tour his tower, he was happy to meet them. More ecstatic when he learned they would be coming right back from Oscorps. Because he can show the fuck off.

That and he fed them. Take that Oscorps.  

"Tony, I don't think I need to remind you at all but the bus have already made it to the reserved parking in lot A," Pepper announces to him. "Also please watch what you say around them. They're still kids."

"Fine. Do i still have to put on a suit?” he whines.

“Yes, make a good impression on them,” Pepper reminds him.

“Fine, fine.” he waves at her while he makes his way toward his room to change. That doesn’t take long at all, hes used to putting on so many suits that he can change from one to another in about less than a minute not counting his white shirt. Buttoning those are a pain. “Jarvis, where are the others?”

“ _Captain Roger is currently in the shower after his morning workout, Dr. Banner is in his lab, Ms Romanov is making rounds as usual along with Mr. Barton. Mr. Wilson is visiting his mother and sister, and Sergeant Barnes is in Captain Roger’s room.”_ Tony’s eyebrow raises at this but remains silent. He takes a white dress shirt, along with a deep blue suit pair. His cuffs that form with his bracelet to form a hand from his Iron Man suit.  “ _Mr. Odinson is off world per usual. The Maximoff twins are still traveling along side with my double, Vision.”_ Jarvis announces to Tony.

“Do ya miss your little brother, Jarv?” Tony grins as he yanks his clothes on.

“ _None so, sir. Vision has made sure to keep in contact at all times.”_ Tony laughs when Jarvis says this. He could hear the annoyance out of his voice. Tony slips his cuffs on and tracks his shoes down. “ _If you are searching your pair of shoes, they were tossed under the long sofa in the living area.”_

Oh that's where they were. “Thanks Jarv.” After finding his shoes, Tony heads on over to where Bruce is. “You sure you don’t want to meet the kiddos?” Tony asks one last time.

Bruce glances up from his work and shakes his head. “No thanks, Tony.” Tony pouts at this but drops it, knowing Bruce is still nervous especially meeting a group of kids.

One of these days.

 _“Sir, i’ve found something rather odd.”_ Jarvis interrupts. “ _There there seems to be gradual levels of radiation increasing down on the first floor.”_ Jarvis hums in interest.

“Radiation as in someone came from a CT scan or radiation as in-” Tony thumbs at Bruce.

“ _It’s rather odd, sir.”_

Tony and Bruce are slightly alarmed at this.

“Radia--Tony _how_?”

“Did something leak--mark that, we don’t have radiation where the hell is it coming from. There's a group of _kids_ coming.”

“ _I believe that is where the source is coming from. Though this type doesn’t seem to be affecting anyone else but the single individual. My advice calls for some medical attention before something happens that will alert the media?”_

“How can someone not kno--” Tony shakes his head. “Scan each and every one of them when they walk in through the doors, Jarv. Tell Carmen and Judy Cortez when you find the person to bring them up and try not to freak him out. I don’t need press going all over this.”

“ _Right away Sir.”_

**.:.~0~.:.**

“Clint If you get stuck up there i will laugh,” Natasha says as she watches Clint climb up into the vents.

“Jokes on you i never get stuck.”

“Apparently we did remember Budapest quite differently.” she smirks when he looks back down just to glare at her.

_“Ms. Romanov, Mr. Barton. My scanners indicate that there seems to be an individual affected with some level of radiation that is slowly increasing as we speak. Sir wanted me to tell you to locate and bring the person into Dr. Banner’s lab while being inconspicuous.”_

“Are we going to have to fish them out or do you have the person located.” Natasha asks the AI.

_“The person is a young male, height is five foot eight at one-hundred and forty-one pounds. Brown hair, blue sweater with a plaid collar and gray jeans.”_

“Sounds like a high schooler, should be on their way to the food hall.” Clint says as he hops down from the vent.

Natasha and Clint take their leave quickly.

**.:.~0~.:.**

Finding him didn’t take long.

The boy that fits the description seem to be on his way for what seems to be a third plate and Clint keeps in a chuckle when the guy running the line glares at the kid.

He’s a little on the short side, _skinny as hell_. If Laura were here he was sure she’d feed him.

Go ahead kid, go for fourths and fifths if he can manage it. Just gotta get past the glare _._ He should tell Tony about the guy glaring because the kid falters as he takes his third round. Its sad that the previous lunch lady that had his position pass away. She was so sweet and always tried to over feed anyone she saw that was on the lean side. Hell, she would physically give you food if she sees you sitting at the tables with no food.

“I recognize the girl he’s sitting with,” Natasha says softly. “Gwendolyn Stacy, NYPD’s Captain George Stacy’s daughter.”

“Let’s hope she isn’t the kind that will cry to daddy if something happens.” Clint mumbles.

“She also has her eyes set on working for Oscorps in the future. I won’t be surprised if she gets the internship by her junior year of high school. Then there's Osborn’s kid.”

“Kid’s going in for fourths. Looks a little pale.” Clint observes. Natasha doesn’t answer him because when she saw the kid lean against the wall for support, she dives in fast, Clint trailing behind her.

“Honey, are you alright?” Natasha says in an overly sweet voice as she approaches the boy.

"Y-yeah. I'm fine. Just a head rush is all." was the boy’s answer. "I'm just going to go back with my class." He waves over toward the direction of the line. Natasha took the time to give Clint a look. He nods.

"Yeah, you don't look a hundred percent. C'mon, let's go to the infirmary and we'll get you back with your class as soon as we can, alright? My friend will let your teacher know."

Clint made his way toward the line, the teacher waiting for a few last kids.

“Ma’am, can i speak with you for a second?” he asks, the teacher glancing over and recognizing him. She nods quickly as he pulled her to the side.

“One of the kids in your class looks a bit sick, so we’re just going to take him to our infirmary. We’ll try to get him back with you as soon as we can.”

“Oh, dear everyone looked fine after we left Oscorps.” the teacher looked around and noticed it was one of her favorite students. “Oh it’s Peter isn’t it? He was looking forward to this visit most of all.” her face fell. “Please take your time. His health is more important,” she tells Clint.

Clint nods and walks away, feeling someone staring back at him. Ignoring the feeling, he quickly slips in the elevator Natasha and the kid, Peter, was on before it takes off. Clint quickly signs to Natasha the kid’s name, to which she nods.

"How are ya feeling, kid?" he asks.  

"Ah, you know. Fine. Just fine," Peter breathes out. Clint frowns. Kid is a terrible liar. He also made a dent in the railing with his grip. He steals a glance at Natasha, who made eye contact with him. He gives her a look. The elevator opens about five seconds later. Clint just puts his arm around Peter and walks him out of the elevator and towards Banner’s lab.  

"So what's your name?" Natasha asks. Obviously they know his name, they just want to make sure he’s still lucid.

"Peter Parker," He tells them. She nods. Good, still lucid for now.

"Names Clint," he says while Natasha mutters out her name.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, i'm not a big science nerd so excuse anything that doesn't seem to make sense if you do understand it. Fan fiction logic. I do the best i can with my research.

Clint lifts the kid onto the table for quarantine and his heart drops because of how light he found the boy to be. If the radiation still increases at this rate, the kid isn’t going to make it. By the look on Bruce’s face, he isn’t about to let that happen.

“Full body and deep body scan, Jarvis,” Tony says. “Get his shirt off.” he tells them. The medical table has sensors, of course Jarvis can read through the materials of the shirt but for a more accurate reading skin to sensor contact would be best.

Natasha wastes no time and easily slips the shirt off. The boy complying, probably has little to no strength left. She pauses for a nanosecond when she sees the bruises hiding underneath. She doesn’t know if the kid is easily bruised or someone is hitting him. Family abuse or a bully at school are the only answer, aside from side effect of radiation. She quickly glances at Clint, who steels his emotions.

Clint’s having the same thoughts. And flashbacks.

Natasha lays him back down gently and steps back, letting the dome close over. 

“ _ Amount of radiation currently is at 430 millisieverts. Reading prior to this was at 200 millisieverts,”  _ Jarvis says. 

“Mill...isiev...erts?” Peter murmurs, eyes glazing over. He’s still struggling to keep awake. “Radi...ation ab...sorb...tion…?”

“No, no, no. That’s not good for it to sky rocket so much. Why would it be increasing?” Bruce asks himself as he works fast.

“ _ Radiation levels currently at 600 millisieverts. Sir, there’s also signs that the radiation is starting to alter his DNA, his blood pressure is increasing, as well as his heart rate.  _

“Tony.” Steve hurries into the lab. “If you don’t want to alert anybody, you still have to make an appearance for the kids.” 

“Ah crap i forgot. Jarvis keep me updated.” Tony dashes out. Steve reluctantly walks in the lab.

“Jarvis, keep note of the changes to Peter’s body,” Bruce says to Jarvis. 

“ _ There seems to be a concentrated amount of a radioactive mass coming from the nape of Mr. Parker’s neck.” _ Bruce wastes no time slipping on gloves and grabbing a petri dish. He sets it aside as he grabbed a pair of slightly large tweezers. 

“Someone needs to flip him over.” Natasha didn’t let him finish and gently set him on his side as Bruce starts working. Natasha glances and sees the lump under his skin with a thread hanging from it. 

It takes him a moment but he manages to pry it out and lay it on the dish. Bruce places some gauze over the entrance and tapes it in place. Natasha lays him back down and glances up to see what the cause of this was. 

“It’s a...spider?” Bruce said, confused. How could a spider cause all of this?

“A  _ radioactive  _ spider,” Clint reminds him.

“Bruises are disappearing.” Natasha says when she spots the one forming on his forehead and the ones on his torso. “Still sweating profusely.” Natasha glares at Peter’s body. Peter twitches and curls up in agony a second later, clutching at his abdomen in pain. His teeth chattering and shaking uncontrollably with chills. His face had gotten much paler than before.

“M-make it stop…” Peter gasps out. 

“Peter?” Natasha whispers softly. She let out a soft gasp when she found herself staring into completely black eyes where the sclera and the iris had been. The pupil seemed to have bleed on out. She isn’t sure. The moment she mentions this to the others, his eyes roll up into the back of his head and he finally passes out.

“ _ Muscle mass is starting to form. Radiation levels risen to 4000 millisieverts.” _

“Survival rate?” Natasha asks.

“ _ Survival rate confirmed at fifty percent.”  _ Clint shares a worried look with Steve. “ _ Radiation levels have peaked to 5340 millisieverts and has stopped. Scanners show signs of increased body muscle mass and bone mass. It also appears that Mr. Parker has grown something similar to a spider’s setules on his hands and feet. Survival rate now at fifty-eight percent.”  _

“Whatever he got bitten by, It’s not even an ordinary radioactive spider.” Clint comments. 

“Whatever the hell it is, the kid isn’t going to come out the same as before,” Nat sighs as she gently lays him onto his back again. Steve studies the boy from afar.

_ “Survival rate at seventy five percent and rising,”  _ Jarvis says.  _ “Radiation levels are rapidly decreasing.” _

Bruce let out a breath he didn’t realize he held. The doctor tapes the petri dish close and labels it, setting it on the table and asks Jarvis to scan it.

_ “The results won’t be for a while. As with Mr. Parker, i believe that in his current condition there is no way for him to return to class before the end of the field trip, or at all until probably the next morning. Best course of action would be to inform his family.” _

_ “ _ Not the best course of action unless you want to freak his parents out,” Clint pauses. He wiggles his jaw around as an idea forms. “Is Tony still talking to the kids?” 

“ _ Yes. Sir should be finishing up soon.” _

“Great, lead me to him. I got an idea.” Clint marches on out of the room.

Natasha sighes when he leaves. “He’s going to get the girl Peter was with.”

“That doesn’t sound like a great idea.” Bruce says as he’s taking a look at the spider on a microscope. “Wasn’t he with Osborn’s kid? He’s going to rat.”

“Not if something happened at Oscorps between them. If Clint has a feeling about something, he’s probably ninety-nine point eight percent right,” Natasha says. “How’s Bucky doing?” she asks Steve.

“He’s doing fine, as any other day.” he shrugs. “We decided to just bunk in one bed like the old days. It makes him feel better.” Steve nods at Peter. “What happened?” he asks.

“ _ Survival rate is at eighty three percent.”  _ Jarvis announces. Bruce nods at this.

“Not too sure yet until he wakes up. Jarvis just announced that there's a kid leaking radiation that needed medical attention.” Bruce answers Steve.

Natasha crosses her arms. “I’ve been doing a lot of undercover assignments prior to coming to Stark at Oscorps. Fury had an inkling of a feeling that Oscorps was trying to mimic the super solider serum by using the biology of insects and cross breeding them to a point where they can create a bunch of superbugs and potentially trying to sell it to Hydra.”

Steve freezes at the mention of Hydra and swears under his breath. 

Natasha goes on. “I couldn’t find anything, and practically anything locked up was entirely too sophisticated. DNA signature lock. Hacking was a bitch to do, but with Stark it shouldn’t be a problem. Just a matter of not getting caught.” 

“Fury can’t know about the kid. He didn’t even know what was going on at all.” Steve grounds out. The last thing he wants is to forever track every step Peter would make for the rest of his life. One slip up and they’ll be all over him. 

“You’d be surprised at how Fury can be merciful to kids. Kids are influential, they aren’t as corrupt as adults would be. Though i’m not saying we should tell him now. He’ll find out sooner or later.”

“Cross breeding is right, but not entirely right,” Bruce speaks out, interrupting the two of them. They both gave the doctor a look for him to explain further. “Usually cross breeding involves only two living things. So far Jarvis found five different types of arachnid species and in counting. What Oscorps did is inter-species genetic transmutation. Something that should be impossible. Something like that i’m not surprised they keep it closed shut, so i’m curious as to how Peter got bitten.”

“They’re spiders. Radioactive or not they’re still spiders and they’ll find they’re way out,” Steve says to him.

“A genetically enhanced spider crossed with a human and somehow Peter makes the perfect hybrid,” Tony says as soon as he waltzes in. “Jarvis kept me updated via texts. Also, we got a tag-a-long.” In came Clint and then the girl.

Something clicks in Natasha’s mind, but she keeps quiet. She’s going to have to do some work digging up information from shield’s database.

Gwen Stacy practically dashes in and pauses as she see everyone look at her. Clint smirks when he turns around to face her. As soon as Gwen spots Peter on the table she nearly bowls Clint over. Natasha held her hand out to stop the girl from touching him.

“I know you’re worried, but we have to let Peter sleep this off.” Not that he can wake anytime soon. Poor kid is dead to the world.

“ _ I knew we should’ve stayed with the tour group, _ ” Gwen hisses out. “Harry’s going to be a  **_dead_ ** man.” she growls out. Clint winces. 

“Yeah, about that,” Tony interrupts her. “You’re going to have to tell us what happened.” Gwen looks at him questioningly. Noticing the apprehension, Steve steps up to the girl with a gentle smile on his face.

“We need to know what happened so we know how to help Peter. Nothing is going out of this room.” he assures her. She pauses for a moment and nods. She starts her explanation, how they had been as Oscorps and how she stupidly agrees on sneaking away to look at something else. She describes the room they were in and what they were working on, and the hidden room in the back where Harry let Peter go into.

She pauses in her story and gasps.

“It was the spiders, they fell on him. O-one of them must’ve bitten hi--” she stops “ _ Ah-choo my chocolate house,  _ that's what happened. The spider bit him that time.” she curses herself. “What’s going to happen to him?”

“We’re going to have Peter rest here for the rest of the day to observe him. We don’t want his parents to freak out so we’ll need you to cover for him,” Bruce explains to her.

“Aunt and Uncle, his parents are dead,” she says mechanically. “Wh-what happens if he--” she stutters.

“No, he’ll live. I promise,” Bruce assures her. “I just want to be extra cautious is all.” Gwen nods as she wipes the tears in her eyes away.

“We’ll tell your teachers that he had a little fever and went to rest,” Clint says. “We can  _ ‘take’  _ him home when he wakes.” the man air quotes.

“Right, we were planning on hanging out, i’ll just tell his aunt and uncle he’s staying the night at my house looking over notes,” Gwen says and earns  a nod from Steve and Clint. 

“I’m sorry to put this on you, but we don’t need to alert anyone until we know for sure of what we’re dealing with.” Steve apologizes. Gwen shakes her head.

“If we hadn’t gone in, or if i just stopped Peter from going in--” she tears up.

“Hey, none of this is your fault.” Bruce steps up to her. “This is just an unfortunate accident. Jarvis what’s Peter’s survival rate?”

“ _ Mr. Parker’s survival rate has risen to eighty five percent. His body is beginning to stabilize.” _

“See? Everything is fine. He’s just...going to be a little different when he wakes up.” this sparks worriness in Gwen’s eyes but she remains silent. 

“Will you--can i--” she couldn’t say correctly.

“How would you feel if you can come by tomorrow in the afternoon? I’m sure Peter will be up by then.” Steve offers. The girl nods with enthusiasm. 

“Thank you so much Captain.” she wipes her tears away.

“Call me Steve.” the man smiles. 


	6. Chapter 6

It’s been several hours since Gwen left to her group with the escort of Pepper under the guise that “Stark wanted to personally talk to both her and Peter about possible internship in the future. He really loves gifted children like those two.” or something like that. Though of course there’s no swooning Gwen as she already set her eyes on Oscorps.

Pepper had been rather hysterical when she walked in the lab to see almost all of the Avenger’s gathered, a crying girl and a shirtless sick boy resting on the table. Tony had been quick to explain everything to her then.

“ _Tony the last thing we need is to be sued by that boy’s parents! Do they know what’s going on?!”_ Pepper exclaims, looking close to freaking out again.

“Well, _no._ They don’t know what’s going on _but everything is fine!”_ he assures her again. “We really don’t know what happened but i know who to blame.”

“Wha--who, Tony?” Pepper asks as she brought her hand to her temples, trying to ease an oncoming headache.

“Oscorps.” Tony say as if it were obviously. “Can’t think of any other reason. He was there before he came here. From what his little girlfriend said they snuck off with Osborn’s kid and wound up in a place they weren’t supposed to be.” Pepper accepts the answer for now.

Bruce had lingered in his lab keeping a close eye on Peter and after Jarvis’ readings that Peter’s health is doing fairly well he decides to get some much needed sleep (he had been up working on something for about thirty hours).

Clint is currently in the living area being incredibly nosy and reading through the boy’s notes from his backpack that he received. Natasha walks in from a workout when he starts to laugh.

“What are you laughing about?” she asks as she makes her way toward the fridge and grab a water bottle.

“This kid is such a nerd. It’s a field trip and he took notes.” Clint snickers when he sees little drawings on the side. He’s slightly amazed when he finds some pretty good sketches of machines.

“That’s generally what field trips are for.” she raises an eyebrow.

“Damn these are color coded.” he whistles as he pulls out a packet and flips through them. He shakes his head. “Don’t understand shit.”

“Wouldn’t blame you. Kid is _brilliant_ in school. He’s practically blasting through his physics and chemistry class,” Tony says as he walks in from his workshop. “Only downside is that he’s not doing really well in English and P.E. Always hated P.E.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Clint says with sarcasm. Clint opens a small pocket and found tiny little flat like pellets, shrugs and sticks them back in the pocket again. He carefully sets everything back in the boy’s bag and set it aside.

“Hey Jarv, how’s the kid doing?” Tony asks as he pours himself a cup of coffee.

 _“Mr. Parker is still in deep slumber. His fever had subsided and his body has fully stabilized. It’s all a matter of time for the young boy to awaken,”_ the AI says to Tony.

“Guess he’ll miss dinner,” Tony shrugs.

“ _Captain Rogers has requested to order Mr. Parker some take-out for when the boy awakens.”_ Tony’s face scrunch up in confusion. Really?

“What did he order?” Tony curiously asks.

“ _One of everything, and plenty of chow mein from your favored chinese take out.”_

“The kid looks like he’ll barely knockout a normal order of chowmein, I’m pretty sure that's way too much.”

_“I assume Captain Rogers viewed the boy’s genetic change much like his own. He sounded positive about the amount of food and had seemed worried it wasn’t enough.”_

“He did grow muscle right in front of our eyes.” Natasha says absent mindedly. She receives odd looks from Clint and Tony. “When you workout, you need protein to build muscle. After workout, that is after the first two or so weeks of not wanting to puke you get very hungry. For him to build so much muscle at such a fast rate there’s no doubt he’ll be starving when he wakes up. Steve understands one hundred percent since he went from puny to god like thanks to the serum.”

“I’m definitely looking forward to that. Jarvis, make sure you record whenever comes a time that they’ll have a eating contest. Also, order the usual pizza delivery.”

“ _Right away, sir.”_

**.:.~0~.:.**

Steve’s  room is a complete mess. It’s probably a good thing that he didn’t have much personal belongings other than just furniture and clothes. Anything important he keeps hidden  Ever since they both made the decision to just bunk in one bed, Steve made sure he removed anything that could potentially be dangerous to harm (like glass). Steve didn’t know what the heck Tony get his mirrors from because those were still intact. That or perhaps Bucky ignored those.

“ _Buck?_ ” Steve calls out, slowly walking into his room. He lifts the dresser and night stands back to how it had been before and set the mattress back on the frame. The man glances at the bathroom, flipping on the switch carefully but still didn’t find anything.

 _“Sergeant Barnes had another nightmare. He’s currently in front of Dr. Banner’s lab.”_ Jarvis offers Steve, who nods.

Steve sees Bucky standing in front of the window that views Bruce’s lab. It’s also where Peter currently residing in for the moment.

“Bucky?” Steve says as he approaches him slowly. The man clenches his hands and turns his head toward Steve, a look of on his face. “Hey, it’s just me. Everything is fine.” Steve assures his best friend.

“I-” Bucky glances ed back inside the lab. “I-i thought that was-” Bucky closes his eyes and breathes in slowly. “Thought that was you for a moment there…” he mutters and shakes his head.

Steve slowly made it to Bucky’s side and looks in the room with him. His eyes lands on Peter’s sleeping form.

“It’s been so long but i still remember how i was before,” Steve reminiscences. “Pretty sure i was smaller than him to be honest.”

“You were…” Bucky says in a near whisper. His eyes locks on Peter.  Steve smiles.

“He’s perfectly fine. Everyone is still worried about him, Banner most of all but i know the kid will be okay. He’s going to be _really_ hungry when he wakes up though, that's for sure. Took care of that and it’s in on the counter. He’s probably a bit stronger than he used to be, probably faster too,” Steve says. “Training room?” he offers, knowing that usually after a nightmare he likes to work off the adrenaline. Bucky nods. He gives one last glance at the boy before he follows after Steve.

**.:.~0~.:.**

Steve ducks when Bucky swings his foot at his head. He swerves his head when another foot came for his chin. Knowing Bucky, Steve brings his arms up and held his footing, expecting a punch only for Buck’s leg sweeping Steve off his feet. Steve wastes no time and grabs the front of Bucky’s shirt and uses his weight to throw the man.

The sergeant rolls with his landing and tumbles along, popping back up and quickly ducks an incoming fist. He swiftly dodges another, grabbing that arm and yanking himself and twisting up to wrap his legs around Steve’s neck. Bucky still held a grip on Steve’s arm and pulls it straight up and bends it behind Steve’s head. Bucky smirks at Steve’s struggling face, only for his smile to drop when he sees the his smirk.

Steve pulls back and then body slams Bucky onto the mat, earning a groan of pain from Bucky. The man is stubborn, still not letting go of his position around Steve’s neck.

“W-where’d you learn that Buck? Nat?” he says as he struggles from Bucky’s lock.

“D-dame knows how to use her gams in a fight.” he struggles from beneath Steve. “Getcha mug outta mine.”

“Get _your_ mug outta mine.” he retorts. “Care to ease up?” Steve gets on his knees and stands up again.

“ _Nope,”_ he says.

Steve promptly tugs on the man’s hair bun, but the tighter he pulls, the tighter Bucky’s hold is. Both men are too stubborn to let go.

 _“I can do this all day.”_ Steve chuckles out.

  
**.:.~0~.:.**

Natasha walks in on an odd sight.

“Let go of my hair!” Bucky says.

“How about you let go first?” Steve says with a struggle. She doesn’t know how long they’ve been at it but she’s pretty sure he’s losing feeling in his arm. He’s currently trying to shake the man off him.

“Admit you lose then,” Bucky says as he clings onto Steve.

“Not happening,” Steve says, shaking even harder.

“Keep doing that and i won’t be ashamed of spewing on your head.” Bucky shot back.

Natasha wonders if that’s how she and Clint had looked during their fight after Loki took off from the Helicarrier. She remembers Agent Hill watching over the footage and laughing at the hair pulling and biting.

She smiles.

“ **Просто укусите его.** ” Natasha says, Bucky glances at her during Steve’s shaking and twists his head around Steve’s grip (he didn’t have a strong grip on his hair, thats Steve’s fault) and bit him in the forearm.

“OW, ow, ow, ow!” Steve hisses out. “Are you _biting_ me?!”  Steve stops struggling and breathes for a moment. **“** Okay, okay i give.”

Bucky let go of his arms and flips off him. Steve sits down, not knowing which arm to cradle. Bucky rubs his head, feeling a headache from the strain Steve had given him from his hair pulling.

“Did you have to bite me?” Steve looks up at him.

“Did you have to pull my hair?” Bucky shoots back as he fixes his hair. Steve gives him half a nod and laughs.

“Pizza’s here.” Natasha says, interrupting the men. They nod at her.

“You’re not planning on staying up until Peter is up, are you?” she asks. Her hunch is right when she sees Steve glance to the side and back at her. She gives him a flat look. “Jarvis will let us know when he’s coming to so I wouldn’t worry too much. I have a feeling you’re going to need your energy tomorrow because Bruce would want to do a variety of tests on him.” Steve nods, understanding what she means.

He had done the same, of course it took a while because he there had been an explosion literally moments after he was injected with the serum and the murder of Dr. Erskine.

All for the super solider serum. Part of him wonders what would’ve become if it never existed in the first place. Hydra’s constant attempts at a copy of it, and now oscorps?

Or is Oscorps secretly Hydra?

He’s itching to ask the spy if she was planning on doing another undercover mission again. He needs to know just what Oscorps is up to, but for now, he needs to focus on more important things.

Like Peter’s transition from a normal human to a super strength one.

Steve’s transition from that was hard. He kept breaking things so easily that he was too afraid to even _touch_ another person. Even knocking into another person he was afraid of.

It happened once.

That person’s shoulder had immediately dislocated. A sickening pop and it was right out of his socket.

It took a lot of time and patience to hold his strength back that it became second nature for him. He had to learn on his own since he was the only person with that kind of strength.

But Peter will have Steve to help him, that’s for sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No matter if they're super strength and heroes or whatever, they're still best friends and they're going to be 100% immature at some point in the future. Several points. All the time. Also it's my headcannon that Bucky and Steve still use slang from their time with each other. 
> 
> Natasha's translation: "Just bite him."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME. I'm probably going to upload every week? Don't count on me on that but i'll try. Today is my birthday so i decided to upload :) Hope you enjoy~

Peter has this bad habit of waking up half asleep and wandering into the kitchen in search of food. Several times Aunt May and Uncle Ben had caught him running into walls and hitting corners and almost slipping down the stairs.

He still somehow winds up in the kitchen, Uncle Ben is convinced Peter is part beagle.

So groggily waking up with only one mission in mind is how Jarvis finds him.

The AI just keeps his eyes on him, quite curious if the boy can actually find the food. Of course he will notify the others from their slumber. Just after this.

The boy springs up from the table he’s resting on, wipes his eyes, swings his leg over and hops down with grace. He’s sure that the boy does not know where he is, but still finding his way around corners and tables were quite remarkable. Peter’s quick on his feet, stepping out of the door and down the hall, where Jarvis allows the doors to open. The hallways are very dark, Jarvis usually dims lighting to ten percent. Enough to travel through and still dark enough where it doesn’t bother the eyes of any guests.

He finds that he didn’t need to turn the lighting on. Jarvis concludes that Captain Rogers had been correct. The boy is hungry, since he is making his way towards the kitchen area.

The small step up to the kitchen area threw the boy off, but with the boy’s new quick reflexes, he catches himself from hitting the floor and flipping over and proceeds towards the food that's left out. Along with extra pizza.

The boy oddly takes the bags of food and drags them to the floor where he crouches and starts eating. Jarvis takes that moment to quietly notify the Avengers. He makes sure to remind them to be quiet, as to not spook the boy.

If Jarvis could laugh, he would. The boy eats with his eyes closed and sleepily chomps away at the chinese food. He’s also eating with his hands.

He overhears the boy muttering that the pancakes were really good and compliments his Aunt May.

Steve is actually the one to emerge quickly but quietly. The man tilts his head at the missing containers and hears a rustling sound from behind the counter. He steps around and finally spots the boy eating from the ground. Steve is glad he ordered the food, or else he would of raided the fridge. He ate through six containers out of fourteen.

Jarvis makes a note to ask the boy later if he Is he naturally a sleep walker.

Dr. Banner makes his way out, relief in his eyes. Steve makes a quick motion to quiet down and points in the direction of where Peter is currently at.

Jarvis finally turns the light up by twenty percent when Sir walks into the room. Steve is the one to make the move first and approaches Peter.

“ _Son?”_ Steve calls out to the boy. Peter whips his head to Steve, cocking it to the side slowly.

“D...ad?” Peter mumbles out. His eyes were still half open. Steve winces, remembering what Gwen had told them.

“Peter, do you know where you’re at right now?” Steve steps forward, and freezes when the boy tenses up. “Hey, it's alright, you’re perfectly safe.” Steve calms the boy down. “You’re at Stark’s tower. I’m Steve Rogers.”

“Wh _aaaat?”_ Peter says in awe, still not completely awake. He squints.

“I think he’s still out of it Bruce,” Tony says, amused at the boy’s reaction. He wonders if this is how the boy would act if he’s drunk.

Peter just resumes to eating again.

The next few moments went by incredibly fast. Clint pops out from a ceiling vent near Peter, drops down, and Peter leaps up to the ceiling _upside down_ , hand still holding onto the container and the food falls out and lands on Clint’s head.

The one to laugh is _Natasha_. The laugh comes from beside Tony, the man jerks in surprise.

Bucky somehow made his way beside Steve, and the man isn’t surprised when he notices.

Clint curses as he wipes the food off his head. He glances up and sees the boy still upside down.  

“How the fuck we gonna get him down?” Clint complains as he grabs a rag nearby and cleans his hair from the msg ridden food.

“Peter?” Bruce asks tentatively. Bucky just makes his way under Peter.

“Okay, enough of this,” Tony sighs. The boy still looks out of it. “Cover your ears.” Tony warns them and calls out to Jarvis. Clint simply turns his hearing aids off as everyone else just covers their ears. Not a second later, a bullhorn rings through the air.

Peter yelps and drops from the ceiling, landing in Bucky’s arms. Bucky raises an eyebrow at how light he is.

“Awake now kid?” Tony grins. Peter finally snaps out of it and his eyes shot open wide. The boy finally notices his current position.

“Uhh,” Peter says as he looks around. Buck huffs and sets the boy down on his feet. The boy runs his hands through his hair, composing himself a little bit. Peter then notices he’s without a shirt and sees his new muscles. Peter looks beyond confused. “What...happened?” Peter asks as he squints.

“Kid, what’s wrong?” she asks. The boy sits up and blinks hard.

“No, it’s just- _ow.”_ Peter hisses when something pops out of his eye. Peter rubs his eye and pauses. Peter covers one eye, then switches.

“Peter?” Bruce walks up to the boy when his face had scrunched up in confusion.

“I-i can see?” Peter says before reaching into the other eye and removing his contact lense. He blinks as his vision clears up. Bruce notices that the boy is potentially going to freak out.

“Peter, listen,” Bruce says, catching the boy’s attention. “Something happened to you, do you remember anything from yesterday?”

Peter thinks, and suddenly events from yesterday runs across his head. Oscorps, running off, the room, the spiders, feeling like death. His hand slaps the back of his neck and feels the gauze.

Steve winces upon seeing the panic setting in the boy’s face. The boy’s reaction is probably going to be worse later.

“Oh _no,_ ” Peter utters out. Bruce winces at this as well.

“Oh, _yeah_ ” Tony gives a dry laugh.

“Oh, nononon _ononono_.” Peter starts to panic.

“Tony you aren’t _helping_ ,” Bruce sighs.

“Don’t worry Peter, everything is going to be alright,” Steve says comfortingly to the boy. The boy looks at Steve and nods. “Can you tell us what happened from your perspective?” he asks.

“Uh, well. During the tour, we kind of snuck off from the group but i mean Harry said that his dad said it was alright so long as we didn’t get caught but i call bull crap on that but i was just too excited and went along with it,” Peter shoots off. “Then we went into this door that had a pattern lock that was pretty easy to crack and we went inside this room with the biocable they’re still working on, and i found a room in the back which by the way Harry shoved me in and had me look around.”

_Man this kid talks a lot,_ Tony thought.

“What kind of room was hidden?” Natasha asks him.

“A spider room?” Peter answers with a question. She tilts her head. “Where the bio-cables were being produced. Blue lit room, walls circled around, i walked in to take a closer look cause spiders are cool and i kindofsortofplucked at a thread of webbing and the machine freaked out and--” Peter wiggles his fingers, “raining spiders. I thought i got them all off but i guess...not…” he rubs at his neck. “After that i felt fine up until the end of lunch time. I felt dizzy and sweaty and felt like i wanted to pass out. Then later it was just...agony.” he shrugs. “Um, can i have a shirt…?” he asks hesitantly. He crosses his arms in an attempt to cover himself. He’s the only one without a shirt in a room full of adults.

“Oh look, sun’s rising,” Clint comments. Peter snaps his head.

Sun. Rising? As in the sun is rising?!

“How long was i out?!” Peter all but yelps, his voice cracks.

“Not long, just a day.” Clint answers. “And before you freak out more, your little girlfriend covered for you. Story for teachers, ya got sick, for your Aunt and Uncle, you were going over something for a project and fell asleep.”

Peter nods, accepting the lie. Wait.

“She’s not my _girlfriend_!” he squeaks out.

**.:.~0~.:.**

They move back to the lab so Bruce can check his stats on him. The boy reluctantly lays back down on the table and allows himself to be looked over. Jarvis finds him to be in complete perfect health. No damages, even the spider bite was gone.

“What,” Peter asks again, stunned. He sits up and swings his feet over the side.

“Well...the spider bite--”

“--the _radioactive_ spider bite--” Clint reminds. Bruce shakes his head.

“--the genetically altered radioactive spider bite had essentially changed your DNA.” Bruce shows him a panel of Peter’s blood work years before and the DNA then, and compared that to his current from yesterday. “Which i have to say is supposed to be...well...impossible.”

“Am i not considered a mutant then?” Peter points out.

“No.” Tony answers that for him. “Xavier’s kiddos has an X-gene, a mutant gene. If that were the case the man would be here trying to claim you. They’re _born_ with it. _You_ ended up being _altered_.”

“I-is it…” Bruce knows what the boy is asking. He solemnly shakes his head.

“Unfortunately, no. To try and further mess with something as complicated and delicate as the DNA i feel it would bring more harm than good. Look at the bright side, you didn’t actually turn into a spider. No extra appendages or eyes.” Bruce tries to cheer him up. Peter gives a small smile.

“Here.” Natasha enters the room again, throwing Peter a black shirt. Then, as fast as Pietro, Peter catches it quickly without a flinch. Quick reflexes.

Momentarily surprised, Peter tugs the shirt on and doesn’t notice the red spider on it. Clint just eyes her, to which she looks at him innocently.

“So with your body changing, i just want to see what exactly is different about you so we can do our best to help you with the changes,” Bruce says to Peter.

“What, like tests?”

“Yea, nothing invasive at all,” he assures the boy.

“Actually.” Steve interrupts them. They turn to look at him, and find Bucky entering the room with what looks to be--

“Did you get that from my workshop?” Tony says. Bucky ignores the man and just goes up to Peter and offers it to him.

“Uh.” Peter looks at everyone and back at Bucky before taking it from the man’s hands.

“Bend it.” Is all Bucky says, causing the boy’s eyebrows to go up.

“Excuse me, _what_?”

“Peter, don’t worry. Just...trust me on this,” Steve says to him with a knowing smile on his face. The boy shrugs, and doesn’t bend the metal at all.

The metal instead, crushes easily like paper under his grip with the slightest pressure he gives.

“He looks like he's not even trying,” Clint comments. Peter gives him an odd look.

“That was steel, and you crushed it like paper, Jesus Christ,” Tony says.  

“Nah, you guys are just messin' with me, right?” Peter laughs nervously. “T-this is just a prop or something, right?” Peter glances around the room. Peter drops the metal as if it burned his hands, causing it to clatter loudly as it fell to the floor. “ **_I have super strength_ ** _?!”_ Peter exclaims.

“Kid--”

“This can’t happen, _this can’t happen,_ ” Peter cries out.

“Peter, i need you to calm down or else you'll start hyperventilating.” Bruce tells him gently.

“I would imagine this being totally different, i mean most people would jump for the chance to change and be stronger,” Tony says.

“This would be so cool if it weren’t for the fact i can quite literally **_crush_ ** the people i love with just a _hug_ , Mr. Stark,” Peter hisses out. Hearing that makes the two super soldiers wince and Bruce look at the boy with sympathy.

“Oh lord,” Tony groans out, causing Peter to flinch.

“Sorry…”

“No, you make a point. Just don’t call me Mr. Stark. Tony’s fine.” Tony grins at the boy. Peter returns him half a smile, no real emotion behind it.

Peter breathes for a moment, collecting his thoughts.

“What now?” he asks softly.

“Now? I train you,” Steve says to him with confidence.


	8. Chapter 8

Steve lays out some simple rules for Peter to follow. One, for the time being Peter is not allowed to touch anyone else besides him and Bucky. Two, It's essential for Peter to stay at the tower for the weekend so Steve and Bucky can help Peter control his strength.

Peter refused to at first because he needs to go home and fix the plumbing for the basement or else it'll flood until they have to shut off the water. Tony happily calls some people to go to his home and fix it for them. Even then, being gone for the weekend will strike as odd and if he's under the guise of being sick then Aunt May will one hundred percent come down to the city and check up on him. Apparently Uncle Ben had helped them a lot by simply saying to let the boy spend time at his dream job for the weekend. It would be the best way for him to 'recuperate'.

Three, even when Peter has his control, Steve still wants the boy to come by every week or two. Mainly to sate Steve's worries and further training. If Peter isn't coming then Steve will just go and find him. Four, nobody can know besides Gwen. Five, the cover is that Tony offered him an internship and Peter accepted. They met in the medical ward.

" _Actually,_ it's not a cover per say, you did get it. Congrats." Tony gives his million dollar smile. Peter tries not to faint and fights the strange urge to flip onto the ceiling.

Overall, Peter doesn't know how to feel about the new sudden development. Excited? Happy? Scared? He just wants to curl up in bed and have Aunt May tell him everything is going to be alright. Or hope this is all just a weird dream. He pinches himself so many times.

Bruce and Steve explain to him what is exactly different with his body. The first obvious is that he's stronger. How strong, they don't know until they can get him down and run some physical tests on him. The second is that he has a rapid healing factor. Third, from what Natasha has pointed out he has quick reflexes that she'll personally put him through some tests. Fourth is that he can apparently stick to things.

Peter is still trying to get the hang of that last one. He embarrassingly has his hand stuck onto the table when he hopped off. Steve had stopped him from trying to yank it off because Peter would most likely pull the entire table along with his hand. Natasha had poked at his arm and Peter momentarily lost control of his hand and he was finally free.

His eyesight, due to his healing factor, is a _lot_ better than before. His hearing is more sensitive but it's something Peter can deal with himself. He hasn't told anyone about the sensitive hearing. It's not a big deal anyways.

Shortly after running a few quick tests in the lab, Steve leads Peter back to the kitchen so he can eat some proper food (they can save the rest of the chinese for later) for breakfast. Peter is totally down with eating more. He feels like he can squeeze a bit more in his belly.

Peter is currently sitting at the bar facing the kitchen, feet swinging as Steve was making him pancakes, bacon, eggs and sausages.

Whoa. Captain America is making him breakfast.

Holy shit, what the crap.

If someone went back in time and told him that Captain America is going to make him breakfast one day, Peter would laugh until he busted a lung because _really_. What are the odds of that happening.

Guess odds are in his favor.

It's very hard not to gape at this though.

Well, at all of this really.

Hard to believe.

Yup.

Peter swings his legs back and forth. He would bounce them like he usually does but he's afraid he'll break the stool. No, not afraid, he knows he'll break it.

He already broke his little fidget toy. He's still upset about it.

"Here, Peter. After you eat up we'll both go ahead and change and head to the gym." Steve tells the boy.

"Uh, if i'm going to stay for the weekend, wouldn't i need work out clothes?" Peter asks as he picks up a fork and unintentionally bends it in half. He slowly glances up to Steve, who stares in half amusement and half concern. Peter carefully bends it back straight and carefully held the fork with his pointer finger and thumb.

"Don't worry, Natasha went out to get some clothing for you for the weekend. In the meantime i can talk to you about your metabolism." Steve says.

"My metabolism?" Peter questions as he eats.

"Yes, you're going to need to track when you get hungry and how much you eat, comparing to how active you are and what you're doing. If you burn a lot of energy you'll need to eat a lot more than normal to balance or else you'll unintentionally starve yourself." Steve tells him. "It's a lot simpler than it sounds." Peter nods his head. "And just because you can heal faster than others, you still need to take care of your body. When you're eating, try to stick with a lot of protein in your diet as supposed to junk food." Peter nods at this as well. "This will put less strain for our own bodies to do all of the work for us."

"I take it that you had a trial and error?" Peter asks. The man grins and nods.

"I ate a lot back in my time but compared to now, i feel a lot better, a lot healthier than before. We didn't have a lot of healthy foods, especially in the army. Mostly canned foods." he shrugs. "It's what i've noticed." Steve notices that Peter is done with his food and takes his dish.

By the time Steve is done cleaning, leaving Peter alone to his thoughts, Natasha comes back with a bag of clothes from Macy's and hands it to him. She sashays back to the elevator.

"Meet in the gym in ten. Jarvis can help you find it." she says before the doors close on her.

"She kinda scares me." Peter says to Steve, causing the man to laugh.

"She has that effect on people." Steve pats Peter's shoulder.

**.:.~0~.:.**

They meet in the gym with Bucky and Natasha, all changed and ready to sweat. Natasha smiles when she sees how nervous Peter looks, even when Steve tries to calm the boy's qualms.

"Nothing to be afraid of, we won't go through anything strenuous immediately. The most important factor is controlling your strength." Natasha says to Peter. "But before we start anything, I'll need to stretch you out."

The stretches were what Peter learned in gym class. Stretching the arms, chest, upper back, calves and thighs. It was when she made him get onto the ground that Peter learns of another ability he has.

_He's incredibly flexible._

Peter has his legs open wide while on the ground and the black widow is pushing on his back. Peter didn't notice anything until he realizes that he's laying completely flat on the ground. This causes a hum from the shield agent.

"You can join yoga with me sometimes." she says. She puts him through a few more poses, throws in a few just out of curiosity to know how flexible he is.

Very, she figures out.

Albeit clumsy, he can get the pose down in about two tries when she shows him. He can do the bridge pose on elbows and she wonderfully hears his entire spine pop. He can gracefully do the crane pose with no struggle. He ends up doing the lizard pose out of his own curiosity to test how flexible he is. After that, he lifts his legs up in the air, pushes himself up and gracefully brings his legs to the front and stands up.

Natasha internally nods her head. She definitely has a new yoga partner. The expression the boy has is pure delight. Clint is great, since he grew up as a carnie, flexibility for him is not a problem. Though his schedule conflicts with her since he goes home to spend time with his family. Understandable. Maybe all three of them can do yoga together one day.

"That's _so_ cool. And very relaxing, definitely relaxing." he bounces on his feet, wanting to test out more until Steve stops them.

"We'll save that for another time." Steve laughs, happy that Peter is finally relaxing.

"Oh yeah." Peter says lamely. "So how are we starting?" he asks and instinctively catches a small white ball that Bucky threw at him and promptly squishes it when his hands clasp around it. Peter notices it's a ping pong ball. Bucky plops a bag full of ping pong balls on the ground.

"We'll be starting with testing your strength. The exercise is simple," Steve plucks a ball from the large bag, tosses it up in the air and catches it, "just catch these without crushing them." Steve tosses it to Peter, who catches and crushes it a nano second later.

"I feel like i'm going to go through the entire bag." Peter's shoulder slumps down.

**.:.~0~.:.**

It takes Peter about two thirds of the first bag of ping pong balls for him to finally just dent them. After they finish with the first bag and barely starting the second, Peter finally manages to maintain control over his strength. Several more tosses without incident and they finally stop for a mini break. Mainly so they can sweep and get the broken pieces out of the way.

Peter is very proud of his accomplishment, that is until Steve announces the next exercise.

"Now we're going to test your reflexes. Whenever something happens unexpectedly, you tend to lose a grip on your control. I know countless of times during my time my control slipped because i was surprised. I tensed up and ended up breaking things." Bucky and Natasha get up from the sidelines and stand next to Steve with devilish smiles on their faces. "Now, we're going to throw these directly at you. Your job is pretty much the same, but at a much faster rate." Steve opens the other bags of Ping pong balls. Multicolored ones.

"There are red, blue, and green. Dodge the red ones, throw the blue ones to the blue bucket behind us and catch and bounce the greens back. Try to not break them. This will test not only your reflexes, but your hand eye coordination as well." Natasha says. "I'll handle the reds, Steve will handle the blue and Bucky will deal with the green. Any questions?"

"Uh, no?"

"Good, now scatter." Natasha says, causing Peter's eyes to bug out. The woman did not give a warning when she starts and just begins to throw red ping pong balls at Peter.

Peter fails miserably at first. While he does okay with the blue ones, he smashes the green ones the first several time. It's just when the red one suddenly comes straight at him freaks him out and his strength slips on the green he's holding onto and crushes is.

And frustration does not bode well in trying to control strength.

"Dial that frustration back, kid." Bucky barks out. "Getting angry won't help."

Right. He's right.

Peter bites his frustration back and focuses. Avoid red, bounce green, toss blue. It's easy. He just needs to stop thinking so hard.

A lot of the stuff seems instinctual. Peter breathes out and nods. He can do this.

A mess of ping pong balls later, Peter finally gets a grip on his control. He gets a short break as they all sweep up the mess. Peter runs around with the long mop as he sweeps them in a pile.

That's another thing.

He finds out that he's a lot faster as well, but he finds that out in a terrible way. As soon as he takes off, not realizing how fast he was before, he loses his footing, stumbles, and falls.

Right onto the ping pong ball pile. Which promptly scatters everywhere. (Which is odd, they didn't squish when he hit them. Maybe he needs enough force? He didn't tense his body. That's something to test out.)

This time _Bucky_ laughs, and Steve has never felt so incredibly happy just to hear that sound again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this turned out a bit underwhelming? (・´з`・) Steve is just trying to find the easiest way to teach Peter to control his strength first and foremost.
> 
> Also if i were Peter and i was suuuuuper flexible i'd be contorting my body just because i can. To me, i can kinda picture Peter just doing yoga and enjoying it. It clears his mind. And excuse me if i got anything wrong in Steve's explanation to Peter on eating right. I didn't want to get too detailed but i think i made my point, or rather he did. 
> 
> And Peter won't have his spidey sense right away. That will develop later on.


	9. Chapter 9

Peter has his slip ups, but they’re minor and he’s improving quite fast. This type of thing doesn’t take to long to understand, and since Peter is a bright kid, Steve is positive that Peter will have this in the bag. 

Steve finds out that Peter  _ really _ likes hanging upside down. He’s been messing with the stickiness of his hands and so far Peter manages to figure that ability out as well. Right now, Peter is doing yoga upside down and Steve is sure that Natasha is both impressed and jealous.

“Ready Peter?” Steve calls out to the boy from the mats laid out. 

“No.” Peter immediately says but let's go from the ceiling, flips and gracefully lands on his feet. 

“Don’t worry, this won’t be too bad.” Steve assures the kid.

“Probably.” Bucky mutters out.

“Alright, i want to gauge how well you can put up. So come at me.” Steve says as he stood away from Peter and takes his stance.

“Are you sure?” Peter nervously asks.

“Yup,” is all the man says as he waits for Peter to come. Steve grins. “Fine, if you aren’t coming at me--” Steve darts towards Peter. The boy darts his body to the side quickly, avoiding Steve’s hit. Steve throws a few light punches at him, nothing too hard but the boy successfully dodges every one of them.

Steve changes it up and throws in a few kicks. He manages to catch the boy off guard by spinning and sweeping his leg at Peter’s feet, but the boy sticks his arm out quick and flips back onto his feet. 

Peter nearly clips his head when he brings his leg up quick. The boy gives a few more kicks, Steve hears Natasha mutter something about Peter looking like he’s break dancing, and Steve grabs one of the boy’s leg and lightly throw him on the ground. 

“Throw in too many kicks and it’ll be too easy to remember your pattern.” Bucky tells Peter. The boy groans and gets back up with another flip. 

He stays crouched down, leg out and one toward his chest. He then launches himself up when Steve dives toward him. Peter lands behind Steve and jumps again when he swings his leg around and grabs onto the man’s arm when he swings that around and sweeps his own leg under one of Steve’s leg, knocking him off balance. 

Steve tugs Peter down with him and they both tumbled to the ground. Steve pins the boy under him, and finds himself to be struggling too. Peter is pushing him back with a lot more strength than Steve thought.. The boy quickly takes his feet and jams it into Steve’s stomach and knocking all the air out of him and chucks him across the room. 

Bucky and Natasha stood there in shock when Steve is actually huffing for air and cradling his stomach. He stays on the ground for a moment.

“Oh my  _ god _ , i’m so, sososososososos sorry!” Peter squeaks out. The man waves his hand at Peter, a sign that it's okay. 

“ _ Wasn’t--wasn’t expecting that. _ ” Steve wheezes out. “S’my fault for underestimating you.” he groans out. 

“S’bout time someone kicked you on your ass.” Bucky snorts at Steve. He earns a whine from the man. 

“Ten minute break?” Natasha offers as she looks at Steve and Peter with a calculating glance. Steve nods enthusiastically and Peter nods as well.

“Actually,” Bucky speaks out. “Feel like going for round two?” Bucky asks Peter. The boy hasn’t even broken a sweat yet. 

“Uh, yeah i can go for another round?” Peter responds. Bucky nods and gets into position. 

“I’ll go first.” Bucky says and throws a punch at Peter, who catches it with ease. 

“ _Dude!_ Is that a metal arm?! That is _so cool!!”_ Peter exclaims as he turns Buck’s arm around lightly to observe his hand and part of his wrist that peeked from the long sleeve shirt he’s wearing. 

Bucky can feel Steve’s glare because he knows Bucky threw with all his weight into that punch. He knows Natasha is observing everything. She should

Because the boy just catches his arm with  _ so much ease _ . Not a flinch or anything. Peter is too distracted by his arm that he misses the shock on the man’s face.

Bucky takes the distraction and pulls the boy to him, maneuvers around the boy’s legs, spins and flips the boy over him. Peter lands with a hard grunt.

“Did--did you just  _ suplex  _ me?” Bucky shrugs at his question.

“Sure.” because he really doesn’t know what a suplex is. The moves are in his head and his body knows what to do. Bucky just doesn’t know what they are properly called. Peter gets up and Bucky can feel him staring at his sleeve. The man rolls his eyes. “If you can pin me down i’ll let you look at the entire arm,” he baits the boy, hoping it would work.

“Really?” Peter asks the man. He nods. That seem to have spark something in his eyes and the boy leaps at him quickly. 

It works.

Apparently it fuels enough determination from the boy as he comes at him more than with Steve. With Steve, Peter mainly just dodges out of the way and counters. This time Peter is actually coming at him. Bucky can also tell that Peter is using some of the moves Steve used on him before. 

The boy learns quick. 

**.:.~0~.:.**

Gwen didn’t get much sleep after she got back from the trip. Harry’s constant nagging of what happened to Peter and then  _ Peter _ had place a lot of stress on her. Stress she didn’t need to deal with at all. She’s got enough stress already from school and the internship. 

Peter had looked incredibly ill when she last saw him. The image is a bit haunting. Her quietness and puffy red eyes had caused some concern from her parents. Especially her dad, because he didn’t know if he needs to go and threaten someone or hug her until she felt better. 

He made her some hot cocoa before she went to bed, and the thought had warmed her.

She blames Harry and mostly herself because she didn’t go with him or stop him. What would’ve happened if she went with him? At least he wouldn’t face whatever he’s feeling alone.

Or stop him from ever going. Peter can still live normally without having to worry about the new changes. She prays that Peter’s life wouldn’t get hectic and troublesome. If more shit hits the fan for him, she’d have to live with the guilt for it.

But whatever Peter is going to deal with, Gwen is definitely going to back him up. Unless its stupid. Then she’d pull him by his hair and hit him until his head is back on straight.

Gwen falls asleep, determination set on her mind to help her best friend out.

The next morning, Gwen had completed most of her homework and went on to shower and get ready to meet up with Peter. Excitement ran through her.

“Hey dad, i’m going to head to Stark Towers. I have an interview about them offering me an internship with them in the future,” Gwen says as she she slips her shoes on.

“ _ Intervie _ \--wait honey.” she hears her dad call out to her. She bites her lip nervously. The man pops out of his office. “I thought you settled with your internship for Oscorps?” 

“Oh, i have but i still want to compare what they have to offer and it's better if i decline in person.” she says. The man nods.

“Have you called the cab? I can take you there if you want,” he offers. 

“No thanks Dad,” She says and opens the door. The man spots a car waiting for her. “They already sent one,” she smiles. “Bye dad, i’ll see you later!” She gives him a kiss on the cheek as goes out the door. 

George Stacy walks up to the door and takes note of the license plate, before waving them off.

Inside the car, Gwen sighs in relief. 

“You lie a lot better than Peter.” Clint grins. The comment earns a soft laugh from Gwen. 

“How’s Peter feeling? Has he woken up?” she asks.

“He’s fine. A little shaken up over what happened but Steve is helping him through it. A few things first,” he says. Gwen pays full attention. “While Peter is okay, he’s not quite the same anymore.”

Gwen nods. “You’re talking about the change in the physiology of his body.” 

“You don’t seem surprised or shocked--how do you know?” Clint asks her.

“ _ Radioactive _ spider bite. I can only make small comparisons with Hulk’s creation via gamma-radiation.” she shrugs. “It’s far fetched but in the end, radiation is radiation. Too much of it can kill you. If it doesn’t, it changes you. I didn’t see any changes appearance wise, so again, i assumed it's all underneath.”

“Pete’s lucky to have a friend like you. The boy’s going to need a straight head.” Clint says. Gwen smiles. “He should be getting his butt kicked in the gym right about now.” 

“The gym? Peter  _ hates  _ gym class.”

“Damn, i should’ve been there. Missing out on the good stuff.” Clint swears. 

“Wait- why is he in the gym? He literally has two left feet, he’s really clumsy.”

“Steve is putting him through exercises to help Peter. Barnes and Natasha should be there also to help out. I don’t know if he’s getting his butt kicked or if he’s being pelted with ping pong balls i had to pick up.” Clint wonders. “Either way, still getting his butt kicked.”

Gwen shakes her head, not being able to understand what the man just said. She’ll just have to wait until she sees Peter to know.

Til then.

 

 

“Really.” Gwen says and stares at the man. Clint looks back at her, offended. 

“What? I had to get up extra early with the twerps little sleep walking, eating and then have food dumped on me earlier in the morning, then drag myself to fix the kid’s plumbing problem at his Aunt and Uncle’s home.” Clint explains to her. 

“Hello welcome to Starbucks, what would you like today?” 

Gwen rolls her eyes as he spits out his order. 

“Hey, you want anything?” Clint says. Gwen looks at him and shakes her head. “You  _ sure?”  _ She gives him another look and huffs.

“...Grande double chocolate chip frappe.” she answers the man.  He smirks and gives the last order. 

She can’t say no to chocolate.


	10. Chapter 10

They arrive around the back of the tower. With the great help of Jarvis, the AI can allow or deny any who come around back (most just get lost).

So Gwen is fine and didn't have to worry about someone seeing her with _an avenger._ He didn't have to introduce himself, nor did she. They both new who the other is. Clint pulls up in an empty lot and parks the car.

" _Welcome back, Mr. Barton. I see that you have brought a guest along, I take it that you're Gwendolyn Stacy?"_ Jarvis speaks out. Gwen looks up and around.

"Thats-"

"-Jarvis," she finishes for him. "I know. Oscorps is trying to create their own AI but it's just not the same. Doesn't have the same charm like with Jarvis." Gwen tells him with a smile.

" _Why thank you for the compliment, Ms. Stacy."_

"Please, call me Gwen." she introduces herself to the AI.

" _Very well. I take it that you would like to visit Mr. Parker?"_

She nods her head, excitement in her eyes.

" _The Avengers and Mr. Parker are currently settling in the main living area near the labs. Would you like for me to notify them of your arrival?"_

"No! No i want to surprise him," Gwen quickly say. "Also, you're going to have to hold my drink once we reach to the floor for a minute."

**.:.~0~.:.**

"How are you doing this?!" Peter strains out as he tries to wiggle out from the lock Natasha had on him. He's not sure what she exactly did. She twisted him around, legs intertwines with his and he really can't move. He doesn't hurt or anything, he just can't seem to get out of her hold.

"I'm a highly trained agent, this is child's play for me. Your frame is small so it helps a lot, though it would be a bit hard to put the captain in a hold," She says, the boy groans. "On the upside, you're very flexible so you're capable of putting a hold on someone as well. So use that to your advantage."

Off to the side, Steve whispers to Bucky.

"Downside to being really big and muscular is that i'm not really flexible. Watching him do yoga is really hard." Bucky agrees. He's both fascinated and grossed out by it. "Did you really have to do that," Steve says. Bucky knows what he's talking about. Bucky slaps his stomach, causing him to wince.

"That's why. I don't need to lift your shirt to know he left a bruise on you so i knew he can take that punch. I wasn't expecting for him to catch my fist like that."

"Wasn't expecting for him to kick me across the floor like that either," Steve says.

The fight between Bucky and Peter didn't last too long. As much as Peter is strong and impressive, he still lacks experience so Bucky had prevailed in the spar. He still let the kid look at his arm though, the puppy eyes the kid brought on is effective.

The spar with Natasha results in Natasha winning, of course. Even with Peter's agility, when Black Widow can put a hold on you, you're done. He finally calls uncle, to which Natasha grunts and lets the boy go. She gets up and smirks when Peter is still on the ground resting.

"Tired Peter?" Natasha asks and pauses when she hears his stomach growl. She then glances at the clock. "Huh. It's lunch time."

"I'm really hungry," he whines out.

"It's time we stop anyways. You learn really quick."

"How long have we been down here?"

"You woke up around five, been in the lab for about an hour or so, ate for about an hour and a half," Steve lists off. "About five hours. We'll stop for lunch."

" _Thank god."_

"We'll go for a little run later once it gets dark." Steve hears him groan, causing a stir of laughter from Steve.

"Why at night?" he asks him.

"Less people come out, less people to see you," Steve says. Usually people seeing him running is fine, they leave him alone (probably because he's too fast for them and he usually runs in the morning), but if they see a kid with him then people will start asking.

It's going to attract attention and even the smallest will put a blimp on Peter. The boy is only fifteen, he can't have that kind of life.

"Oh, that's probably a good idea." Peter agrees with Steve.

"We can stretch a bit and head to the showers and then grab something to drink," Steve tells them.

As they all stretch out their bodies, Natasha and Peter are twisting and contorting their bodies. Peter is lying on his back and practically folds himself in half. His knees are to his ears and Steve is pretty sure Bucky is swearing in Russian and looking away. Peter straightens his back and his legs, his toes touching the ground. Then he spreads his arms around and picks himself up in that position with so much ease and grace it's sort of hard to not look away.

"Now you're just showing off," Natasha comments as she looks at Peter.

"Sorry, can't really help myself. It's kind of relaxing and cool at the same time. I've never been this still before so it's kind of amazing," Peter says. He starts to do pushups in his current pose.

He stops at around thirty when Steve finally calls out they're done. Natasha heads to her floor, and Steve and Bucky heads to their own with Peter in tow. Since Bucky is bunking with Steve, his room is untouched and Peter can use the bathroom without feeling he's intruding.

That's when Peter finally gets a good look at himself in the large mirror. He swears when he checks himself out because holy shit did he get ripped.

Then Peter remembers gym class, where students change in the _locker room_. Peter was scrawny before. If they see him now they're going to ask a lot of questions.

Ugh, that means he has to change in the bathroom stall. He can practically hear the mocking now.

It takes a moment for Peter to snap out of it and take his shower. He's really nervous on pressing the buttons but he manages to do the job without any problems. After his shower, he digs into the clothing bag and pulls out-

Peter groans.

**.:.~0~.:.**

He walks out to the living area and immediately regrets it. He hears a howl of laughter by none other than Tony Stark. He pouts, face flushing and crosses his arms but the action does not cover what's all over his shirt. Peter glares at the woman propped up on the sofa playing on her phone innocently. Tony's laughter has yet to stop.

When Peter had pulled a shirt out, the only shirt so he assumes its one where he sleeps in, its completely covered hello kitties and bows. The best part were the heads holding a resemblance of an avenger. You can see Iron Man's kitty, Captain America's kitty, a Hulk hello kitty that's slightly larger, a Thor kitty , a Hawkeye kitty and one with red hair and a black suit with an hourglass symbol on it. Meanwhile, the bows are bright red and there were tiny lightning bolts and stars and arrowheads and tiny mjolnir everywhere. At least his pants were just a simple dark blue.

"N- _nice shirt!"_ Tony manages to laugh out whilst wiping away a tear. "That's just perfect!" Natasha takes that moment to pause from her game and glance up with the most innocent expression ever, then smiles as she gives him a head to toe look.

"I had to buy it." is the excuse she gives him.

"Really," Peter says.

"Hey kid." Tony calls out. Peter turn around and hears the sound of a snap going off. Peter gapes.

"This is going to be a perfect christmas card," Tony giggles.

"Mr. Stark! Please delete that photo!" Peter whines out.

"Even if i do i will forever have it on surveillance." Tony is still howling with laughter, so much that Bruce actually walks in with concern for Tony laughing so much until he finally spots Peter's shirt. Peter sees the man clamping his mouth shut and rubbing his nose but the boy can clearly see the man's shoulders shaking.

He's thankful that when Bucky comes in, he only gives Peter a brow raise and gives the boy a pat on the shoulder before heading into the kitchen. He swears up and down he hears the man snort.

Peter just sighs and moves into the kitchen in search of his food which he promptly shoves everything into a single plate and places it into a microwave.

As he waits for his food to reheat, he hears the elevator opening. He spots Clint walking out with an arm full of pizza boxes and another balancing two starbucks drinks. As he sets the food on the bar table, he walks over to Natasha and hands her a drink. "Pizza's here."

Steve walks out with a few more boxes and grins when he spots Peter and his wardrobe.

" _Peter?"_ a voice comes from behind Steve. Gwens voice.

" _Gwen!"_ Peter says when he spots his best friend. Gwen quickly bounds over to him.

"Peter! A-are you feeling alright? You okay?" Gwen asks as she walk around him quickly to find he looks alright.

"I'm okay. Still a bit weirded out but i'm doing okay," Peter tells her.

"I'm glad," she responds back to him. Then he's suddenly being hit with Gwen's bag over and over again.

"Wai-wait Gwen-ow, ow-why are you hitting me?!" he yelped.

"PETER BENJAMIN PARKER, this is for making me worried sick," she whacks him "and angry" -then again "and guilty" -again "and sad and-and-" she hits him one last time before calming down. "I was so worried about you Peter." she pulls Peter in for a hug. The boy tries not to tense up and quickly glances at Steve with worry. He hasn't touch anyone even after learning to control his strength other than Bucky and Steve. He hadn't touch Natasha in their spar because the woman puts him in a lock in nearly four seconds. Five times.

"So _that's_ why you handed me your drink," Clint comments. Gwen pulls away from Peter.

"Sorry about that." she says and takes her drink back. She finally registers the shirt Peter is wearing. "Nice shirt."

**.:.~0~.:.**

As they sit down for lunch, Gwen asks Bruce plenty of questions on what _exactly_ happened to Peter. The discussions quickly turn into a demonstration that Peter is more than happy to do. He honestly likes the fact he can stick to things. It has yet to phase her that Peter is a lot different now just from what he's describing. Maybe when she sees it, like how she's staring at up as he's clinging onto the ceiling upside down.

He can probably fall asleep if he can stick to the ceiling long enough.

"Pete you look a bit too happy up there," Gwen calls out to him.

"Hand him a duster while he's up there, the kid can get into the nooks and crannies." Clint comments as he sees the boy curling up and peering at something.

"Oh _sweet! You have a brown widow spider up here Mr. Stark!"_ Peter exclaims with glee, causing everyone to freeze. They slowly look up at the boy on the ceiling following a dot from what they can see. "They're supposed to only be in the south!"

"Another to add to your book, Peter." Gwen shakes her head.

"Book?" Steve asks, eyes not moving from Peter's form.

"Of all the Spider's he can possibly find." Gwen shuffles through her bag and pulls a cup with tiny holes poked on top. "Here, Pete." she throws it to him. Peter catches it with ease (thank gosh for those ping pong balls) and sweeps the spider into the cup and quickly closing it. Gwen turns back to her food and find some of the adults giving her an odd look. She shrugs. "He really likes spiders."

When Peter hops down, he has his tiny spider in one hand and-

"Oh dEAR LORD." Tony yelps when he spots the kid holding a damn tarantula. "Where the hell did you find that thing?! In my tower?!"

"It was near the vent!" Peter says with a large smile as he lets the tarantula crawl around his arm.

"You mean _my_ vent?" Clint whispers in horror.

"Please tell me it didn't have babies," Tony cries out. Peter shakes his head.

"This one is a male."

"Not going to ask how you know that so quickly, just-" Tony does a shooing motion.

"Mr. Stark it won't hurt you, see? Harmless." Peter shows the tarantula to the man, who moves back. He holds a fork up to protect himself.

"Peter, Aunt May told you several times about spiders at the table," Gwen reprimands him. Peter slumps his shoulder and dramatically sighs.

"Fine. I'll just put it in the lab with the other...spider. They can be cell buddies," Peter says and made his way to the labs.

A few moments of silence.

"So you think-" Clint starts off.

"No." Tony shakes his head.

"I mean the spiders seem pretty calm, especially the little guy," Bruce comments.

"Nope." Tony shake his head again.

"Don't you think it's kinda weird that-" Clint tries to say

"No." Tony cuts him off. "Jarv, bud. Zap the duct system and ceilings later."

" _I'll keep that in mind, sir."_


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. Sorry for not uploading last week. Sudden family emergency. Nothing much happens in this tbh. I didn't want to leave you guys hanging for another week and i'm still writing up the rest of the outline for the story and changing things around. :)

Clints been fixing up the Parker’s basement problem, a chance he took from Stark before he could call professional repairs that could install state of the art blah blah blah. Clint tunes Stark when he goes on a rant and he’s sure he doesn’t need to hear any of it.

It's the best opportunity for Clint to dissect the kid’s life. Many photos on the walls of his Aunt and Uncle from when he was a toddler til now. He also had the time to slip into the kid’s room and look in there too. 

A  _ complete _ mess. Like those sayings where people say it looks like a hurricane came through here? Yeah, like that. How does a kid breath in a room like that? Clint gets on to what he intends to do in the first place. He has a bunch of books, electronic parts around a desk, papers scattered. There’s a stack of plates on the night stand. Yup.

Normal teenage room. 

Nothing out of the ordinary at all. That should be a good thing, right? Because if he had a bad life to start, the possibility of the boy starting trouble is high. A boy with a completely normal life until now, maybe good. Maybe bad. He gets the feeling that he shouldn’t worry much. From what he sees in his family photos, he has a good heart. 

The spy glances around and spots an attic door in the ceiling. Huh. Teenage room. Attic door.

Yup.

Probably hiding something up there.

Clint quickly looks around for a step stool and finds a chair. It’ll do. 

After two tries he gets up into the attic and finds more junk. Disappointing. The kid probably never goes up here. Clint carefully makes his way around and spots something interesting on the ground. It’s a photo of a couple and their baby. Peter and his parents, and the woman in the photo looks very familiar. 

He takes a quick snap of the photo and places is back where he found it, then makes his way out of the attic. The good thing about a messy room is that you can’t tell if someone has been through it or not.

Well, good for him that is. 

Another quick look and he makes his way out of the bedroom and returns back downstairs and slides back into the basement easily without alerting the Parkers he went out in the first place.

**.:.~0~.:.**

Later after lunch, Clint just mildly sips his trenta frappe (after overpaying the barista) as he watches the kid bending around to a point where he convinces himself that the acrobatics at the circus would be jealous of Peter. 

Natasha tells him of what had happened during the spar that resulted in a large blossoming bruise on Steve’s stomach. If only Clint had been there to witness that. He didn’t know if he should be laughing at Steve for underestimating, or in awe that a  _ kid _ can give Captain America a bruise.  He’s really going to enjoy watching the security feed later. He’s already enjoying watching Steve wince every now and then. He’s good at concealing the pain showing up on his face. The kid so far has yet to notice the lingering pain he left on the captain. 

Clint flinches when a paper ball is thrown at his head. He looks away from the kid to see Natasha signing at him. 

_ ‘You’re supposed to be a master class spy and you didn’t even dodge that’  _ She signs. He rolls his eyes, about to reply back but realizes his trenta frappe occupying one hand. 

Should he put down his frappe or turn his hearing aid back on, just like, one. Then turn it off right after. 

He wants to do neither. 

He likes his frappe more. 

Sighing he turns it back on.

“Let me zone out, aren’t we supposed to be on a break?” he says. It’s her turn to roll her eyes.

“Excuses, excuses.” 

Clint holds his drink between his legs and signs to Natasha. ‘ _ Verdict?’  _ He asks her.

_ ‘Potentially dangerous if gone rogue, but highly unlikely. Find anything?’  _ She asks back.

_ ‘House clean. Good kid. No drugs, no bad family. Found an attic above his room. Nothing but boxes. Found a photo of his parents, mom is familiar,’  _ he says, eyeing her closely.

_ ‘Photo?’  _ she hesitantly asks.

_ ‘I’ll show you later. Better tell me what’s been on your mind since the kid was in the lab,’  _ he shoots back.

_ ‘Fine.’  _ she rolls her eyes again.

_ ‘And Stark?’ he signs quickly. _

_ ‘He’s noticed. He’ll probably hold a meeting when the coast is clear.’  _

_ ‘Of course.’  _ this time, he rolls his eyes. Clint looks away to see what the kid’s doing.

He and Gwen were settled doing homework, but now the kid is upside down and doing it.

He’s kinda jealous to be honest. He looks so comfortable. Then, an idea comes to mind, making him grin.

He carefully reaches in between the cushions and draws out a plastic bow and arrow set. Peter’s facing away from him, which is perfect for him. Unfortunate for Peter. He carefully draws back and aims the arrow at the kid’s head.

_ Thunk! _

“Gah!” Peter yelps as he fell from the ceiling. The boy quickly flips and lands without a problem.

Clint laughs. Ah, yes. Revenge.

**.:.~0~.:.**

 

Happy takes Gwen home about an hour later. Peter’s sad, but he’ll see her again on Monday. For now, he’s content with distracting himself with homework. He would totally take a closer look at the spiders he found, but Steve somehow knew he had homework and made him work on it before anything else. Peter doesn’t question the man. After all, he’s Captain America. He sees him in enough videos they show at school.

It’s about three now, he’s halfway done with everything. Probably would finish if he took it seriously but everything is a bit bland. The equations are a bit simple. That goes for algebra two and chemistry.

He sighs. He needs a real challenge. Maybe if he can get bumped up to a class a grade higher? But he really doesn’t want to leave Harry or Gwen behind. Heck, he’d leave Flash behind no problem though.

“So, do you not get any head rush?” a voice makes him jump. He turns up (or down?) and sees Dr. Banner there with an empty cup of tea.

“Uh, not really? Sitting like this is really comfortable. It’d be better if i could use two hands, but i’m still working on that.” Peter says. “Actually!” Peter unstick from the ceiling and lands with a crouch. “I was wondering if, uh, i don’t know, you need any help at all in the lab?” he asks timidly. 

“Homework getting boring for you?” Bruce asks as he fixes himself another cup of tea. Peter winces.

“Is it that noticeable?” 

“It’s understandable. Downside to having a higher IQ is that things like school gets a bit too easy. I remember doing a thesis a bit too complicated that the professor gave me a bad grade because he didn’t understand what i was talking about.” Bruce tells the boy.

“That happened to me in Algebra one. I solved an equation using a different method than what we went over and she gave me a bad grade. I mean i know i should’ve went with the method she taught but she still gave me a D. The same thing happened the other day in chemistry. I had to, well, not go over the top.”

“You mean bringing it down a few notches?” Bruce says with a smirk. “Don’t worry, i had to deal with the same type in high school and college for the most part. I just did what was taught and then did my own thing on the side to keep me occupied so it counters off from me going over the top.”

“Hence my arachnid book,” Peter says. 

“Speaking of arachnids, I've been taking a closer look at the one that bit you. You can join me if you’re up to it.” Bruce tells the boy. The man wants to laugh when he practically sees the boy’s eyes sparkle.

“ _ Yes.” _

“You can probably use your arachnid hobby and use that as a research project of some kind. After all you are an intern here now officially for Tony, and you have access to use the labs,” Bruce tells Peter as they both make their way back to the labs. “I’m sure that will preoccupy your mind.”

“Having a better way to log each spider would be really helpful…” Peter says. The mass amount of sticky notes in his notebook for new things he finds out are getting out of hand. 

**.:.~0~.:.**

**_“We are happy to announce the acceptance of your internship with us. Please call the number below to confirm and we can arrange an appointment to go over proper paperwork.”_ **

Gwen’s eyes read the email over and over again, not believing how early the offer came. Usually the process would take several months, and she at first expects the internship letter to come sometime during summer or the start of Junior year.

But the earlier for her to settle her internship and possible employment for Oscorps, the better. She can spend the remaining of her high school years there and when it comes to applying for Oxford University. 

Perhaps Harry in some way put in some nice words about her to his dad? Maybe not, their relationship is not the best. Should it matter how she got in so early? No. She’s been confident with her knowledge in getting an internship, but this is Oscorps full of bright adults. She’s still a kid.

A very smart kid.

Still. A little intimidating.

Gwen calls the number and arranges an appointment for Monday. She’s sure Peter will be fine without her after school. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously though, does he not get a head rush? I mean seriously.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, i'm back. Sorry for the absence.

 

Later that evening, Steve walks out with a blue cap on, and a gray hoodie with dark blue pants he typically wears for his usual morning runs. He has a dark red hoodie for Peter draped over his shoulder. Bucky's already waiting on the sofa as Steve is tracking Peter down.

Jarvis is very helpful in informing Steve of Peter's whereabouts. He finds the boy in the lab with Bruce and Tony.

"Pete, it's time for a run." Peter glances up at Steve. He looks like he was messing with a small screen that he often finds Tony and Bruce work with. He doesn't pay much attention to it when he sees a lot of letters and numbers and a red glowing screen every now and then.

"Oh, right." Peter looks like he doesn't want to be away from whatever he's working on.

"Don't worry kid, Jarvis will keep your little project saved." Tony says as he's messing with what looks like an arc reactor he had in his chest before.

"Where are we going?" Peter asks.

"Central park." Steve smiles. "Nice place for just about anything. It's not too far from here. We can catch a bus."

"A  _bus?_ " Tony says as if the word offends him. "Steve, i have a car you can just take. Or Happy can take you." Steve tries to not roll his eyes.

"Because that's not flashy at all." Bruce mutters.

"Tony, i appreciate the offer but i'd rather stick with the ol' fashioned way. That and i've rode on it plenty of times and i've had no problem. That and the subway." Steve shrugs.

"Ugh, fine. Be that way. Just don't attract too much attention or else Pep is going to kill me."

"Which is why he's not taking any of your rides, Tony." Bruce looks at Tony with amusement.

"And also the reason why we're going at night. Nobody will see us." Steve ends the conversation by nodding at Peter. The man finally notices the tarantula on the boy's shoulder. An odd sight. "And bring your little friends along too," Steve adds.

"Ha!" Tony spreads his fingers and arms out in happiness. Whatever he was working on is now floating. Tony gave it a poke and smiled. A few seconds pass and the floating arc reactor starts to spark and shut down, plopping back down on the table and died. Tony's face scrunch up. "Huh."

Steve shakes his head in amusement. "C'mon Peter," he ushers the boy.

**.:.~0~.:.**

"Be free little guys," Peter chimes as he sets the tarantula in a bush and the widow in a tree. Peter and Steve had made very deep in central park, both in casual hoodies covering their heads. The early september weather is chilly but perfect during a good run. Bucky also tags along with them, but Steve knows his best friend wants to make sure they're safe.

Peter is wearing a dark blue cap, a dark red hoodie and simple navy blue basketball shorts, while Steve opted for a gray, thin hoodie and long blue jogging pants. Bucky has his hair tied up with a black cap on and has on a dark green hoodie and black jogging pants. He would've opted for everything black but apparently that's going to give off a wrong impression and people will think he's a burglar or something. It's not like he's going to blend in with the darkness, it's autumn. The yellowing leaves on the trees and the moonlight illuminates the place.

"Alright Pete, we'll start with a nice jog. Sound good to you?" he pats the boy on the back to grab his attention away from the freed spiders.

"Huh? Oh-yeah!" Peter says as he wipes his hands on his shorts.

"Try and stay together, the park is real big, but the path we're on is fairly simple. We'll take a right here at the flower bed and keep on straight. This trail is right by east drive. Our halfway point is the Naumburg Bandshell. From there we'll keep on ahead and join Terrace Drive and continue the rest of our run there and meet back from the entrance we came through." Steve says to Peter. The boy nods.

And so the three start off their jog, Steve mostly in the front, Peter is a bit behind him and Bucky is behind them but still close enough where he won't get lost.

Or rather he's probably making sure Peter won't lag behind. Peter is constantly looking around him at the scenery because he honestly never ventures in the central park before but one thing for sure this won't be his last time visiting here.

It's very serene.

"Um, how long are we going to run for? Ya know, just curious. Cause my curfew is at ten, though i guess that doesn't matter since i'm not with them at the moment-"

"Just a few hours kid. Running is good for you, good way to just clear your mind," Bucky says from behind Peter.

"Is that why Steve runs so much?" Peter comments. Bucky raises an eyebrow. "Well-he seems to know the trail a lot so i just assume," he shrugs. Bucky nods.

"Guys, you're a little bit slow, am i going to fast?" Steve turns around, still jogging and a smirk on his face. "I can slow down."

Bucky glares at Steve, the man knows that type of comment will work Bucky's gears.

"C'mon kid, let's step it up," Bucky says as he pats Peter on the shoulder and urges him to go faster. The boy shrugs and jogs faster beside Bucky, not minding at all. It's been a while now and he doesn't feel winded at all.

Steve grins as he's turning around and waits for Bucky or Peter to catch up to him to go a bit faster. When he hears their feet closer he starts to jog faster.

"You think you can keep up Peter?" Steve turns around again and asks with a smile.

"Yeah, definitely," Peter answers the man.

"Alright then." Steve turns around and shouts "Go!"

Steve suddenly dashes down the path, and for a moment Peter was lagging a bit behind because it he honestly didn't expect that. Not wanting to be left behind, Peter runs faster and catches up with Bucky quickly and the two keep it up.

Judging from the photos he's seen of it during history class, the Naumburg Bandshell is up head. Peter knows the men can run a lot faster, and Bucky can keep up with Steve like its nothing.

Well, since they're there to run, why not see how fast he can run?

"Hey, is that the halfway point?" Peter asks casually.

"Yup!" Steve answers.

"Cool!" And Peter starts pumping his legs harder. He passes Bucky and in a few seconds passes Steve. "Last one there buys Ice cream!" he shouts as he runs towards the Bandshell's direction. Peter can hear feet hitting the pavement harder and faster. He yelps when Steve passes him, and then Bucky.

Darn, he's not faster than them, but at least he can keep up with them.

They finally make it to the Bandshell with Steve and Bucky tied and Peter just a few steps behind them. They all slow down and stop just before the large amphitheater. Peter hops up on the stage with ease and plops down.

"Didn't even break a sweat huh, Pete?" Steve comments. Peter shrugs.

"The run was cool." The comment makes Steve chuckle.

"It's a good warm up. We have a little more to go." Steve slaps Bucky on the back. "Ready for another round?" Bucky nods. Peter hops off the stage and stretches again. "It's almost a quarter to nine."

"We shouldn't stay out too long," Bucky says. Steve nods.

**.:.~0~.:.**

As soon as they hit Terrace Drive Steve says that they're going start running from here on out. They just pass by Daniel Webster's statue when Peter's sensitive hearing picks something unusual up from somewhere. This causes Peter to slow down just a bit and glance around.

He finds nothing. He honestly doesn't know how to really work his ears and his super hearing, sometimes there is no off button when it gets triggered. Peter does notice that when he uses his powers a lot, especially when he was training, his senses have dialed up a lot. It had been hard for him to not break his concentration with whatever he had been doing at that moment.

So when he's currently running probably above average for a normal human, his senses begin to dial up and he hears shuffling in the distance. Peter concentrates harder, focusing his hearing on the shuffling sounds, no. More like rustling sounds.

" _...!"_

" _..."_

" _...!"_

Voices, he's hearing voices. Oh. Probably someone visiting the park like he is.

But.

But his gut is giving him a bad feeling.

Peter decides to head in the direction where he's hearing the rustling sounds from, carefully but quickly. As he walks into the plethora amounts of trees, his hearing zones in on the sounds. He sees a pair of figures on the ground, one on top of the other.

" _You can have my money, please please stop."_

" _Sshh, don't worry. You'll start feeling real good trust me."_

" _No, no, no please-mmph!"_

As the words were exchanging, Peter's heart beats faster. His eyes grow big when he's hearing muffled sobbing.

He knows he's suppose to stay out of sight, but he can't ignore this. He can't just ignore this.

"You know-when someone says no, it usually means no." Peter lowers his voice and tries to project his anger and disgust at what he's seeing. A large man pinning a girl on the ground. When he spoke, the man had whipped his head around and spots Peter.

"Uh-heh. Ain't this 'mbarrassing. Ya see, me and my gal are into this kinda stuff. It's just pretend." the man nervously laughs.

Peter tilts his head to the side. "The look on her face says otherwise. Let her go." the man's demeanor changes. He glares at Peter and sneers at him.

"If you know what's good for you kid,  _beat_ it."

"And if you know what's good for you, i'd say stop and let her  _go._ " Peter says again with a threat. The man then grins at him.

"Oh really?" the man says and suddenly there's splinters of wood everywhere and a slight tickle on the back of his head. Peter glances behind him to see another man, jaw wide open..

"Oh, was that you?" Peter says will full honesty. He didn't expect a bat to his head. The man is now on the ground crawling away from Peter, face pale and pieces of a broken wooden bat rained everywhere

"S- _shit_  man! He ain't normal!"

"Rude." Peter turns and ducks away from an incoming punch. He spots brass knuckles on the man. He glances at the girl, who's trying to quickly cover herself up.

Peter sweeps a leg under his, planting a foot on the man's behind and shoves the man away from the girl. Peter is very very glad for cram training he had earlier, but he can only do so much without really hurting them.

Dang it, where was Steve and Bucky?

He doesn't really have anything on him to take them down. And while he loves to do some flips his body is wanting to do, he doesn't. The less flashy moves the better. He still doesn't want to attract  _too_  much attention.

"Kid!" Peter can hear Bucky's voice shout out. Bless. They found him.

"C'mon man, let's get outta here!" thug number two says. Thug number one growls and points at Peter.

"I have a good damn memory. You better watch yo back kid!" the man turns around and takes off with his friend in the opposite direction of where Steve and Bucky were coming from and before he knew it, they disappear within the mass amount of trees.

Peter turns back to the girl, who flinch upon Peter's gaze.

"You okay?" he asks her softly. She manages to redress herself.

"I-i-" her eyes water and she shuts her mouth and nods. " _Thank_   _you_. Thank you so much." Peter offers his hand and she takes it, standing up.

"Kid where the hell did yo-" Bucky stops when he notices teenage girl in a complete mess. She flinches when she sees him and Steve approaching and hides behind Peter.

"Uh-wait no they're friends. They won't hurt you."

"Are you alright miss?" Steve asks politely. "What happened?" seeing that she is still nervous, he pops his cap up and shows her his face. Her eyes widen when she recognizes him.

"I-i was walking my dog and they jumped me. One took off with my dog-i-i don't know where Mia is. The other that stayed tried to r-" she slaps a hand to her mouth, not wanting to throw up in front of Captain America.

"You mean this rat?" Bucky pulls out from in inside his hoodie pouch a brown long haired chihuahua completely drenched. "Found her swimming in the water nearby."

"Mia!" she runs towards Bucky and takes her dog. "Thank you so much!"

"You should be careful here, especially at night. It's best for you to stay somewhere very lit, alright?" Steve says to her. He gives her a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Are you here alone?"

"Yes, but i parked nearby at Tavern's."

"It's along the way, we'll walk you back, if that's alright with you." she nods her head quickly.

"Thank you."

**.:.~0~.:.**

Walking along the path with the girl, she kept her pace with Steve the most and talks to him about various causal topics. The only thing Peter can remember is that she really loves designing and wants to be a fashion designer. She designed the collar and leash for her dog which Peter has to say it's impressive.

Next to him, Bucky had been quiet until now. The man lightly bumps his shoulders, gaining his attention.

"Nobody saw your face did they?" he asks softly. Peter shakes his head.

"I kept my head down. It was pretty dark so i'm sure they didn't see and i kept my voice a bit low and harsh," Peter says. "Sorry for taking off like that." Bucky huffs.

"Just, tell us next time before taking off. You never know if they have guns on them or not." Bucky shoves his hand in his pouch. Peter winces. He hadn't thought of that. "How did you know? They were far from the road we were on."

"Uh, i kinda have super hearing too? I didn't really point it out because i didn't get the hang of it. I only notice it when i really use my powers." Peter explains to the man. Bucky nods. He gives a slight smile and ruffles the boy's hair.

"You did good, kid." he lets the boy know. Because he really needs to know. The look on his face when he says that is proof enough.

After a while, she finally finds the place where she parked her car. After a few farewells and abundant amounts of thank yous, they part off though not before she catches the sleeve of Peter's hoodie and hugs him with all her might and then takes off. She sits in her car and drives off feeling safe with heroes like them in the city.

Unbeknownst to them, before she took off, she took a quick photo of them at an angle.

They wait for her to finally drive off and watch her car disappear.

"Peter." Steve glances at the boy, who stood before him nervously. He grins. "You saved a young lady today Pete, i can't think of anything i'd be disappointed of you in. Only when you didn't tell us anything and disappeared. So be careful, alright?" the boy nods. "C'mon, let's finish our run." he pats him on the back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Central park is really pretty, i want to visit it some time. Especially in the fall and winter. Also, there isn't a bus from the Metlife building to Central Park but lets just pretend there is. It's literally like, 15 mins max away by car. Very close by.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! I made it to 3k words for this chapter. I hope i keep up with the lengths for each chapter. 
> 
> EDIT: it seems when i upload this chapter it wont post the entire chapter? There should be more to it after Peter's dodging comment. I'm working on it.  
> EDIT 2: Got it.

The next morning Peter finds himself up before dawn and in his workout clothes. He’s with Natasha and Clint though, instead of Steve and Bucky. The answer he gets from Clint about Steve’s absence is that he’s getting old, though Peter gets a hunch that It's probably something they don’t want him to worry about so Peter doesn’t really dwell on it too much.

On the plus side, after seeing how well Peter’s control is, Steve retracts the no-touching rule. Peter couldn’t be happier to know that.

“Now Peter, you may come across some type of situation where you need to disarm someone,” Natasha says, “you’d want to execute it quickly and with less harm done to the other if possible.” She pulls a gun from her back pocket.

“Whoa--”

“Relax, it’s empty,” she waves him off. She hands it to Clint, who as soon as he held is scrunches his face up and observes the gun, turning it around.

“Wait--this is _my_ gun,” he realizes. “I’d been trying to find this damn thing.”

“Found it wedged into the sofa.” she shrugs. “Anyhow.” she gets into a ready stance, Clint doing the same. “There are many ways to disarm someone, i’ll start you off with a gun first.” she gives the spy a signal and the man points the gun at her head. “Number one, try and not be in this position in the first place. Sure you’re fast, but are you sure you can dodge a bullet fast enough? Especially at this close of a range? First, step to the side and quickly grab hold of the barrel with your left hand and grip it away from you.” She performs the moves a she explains. “Bring your free hand up and deliver a good punch to the side of his face. Then retract your hand and get a good grip from under the gun and twist and pull away. If he’s being extra aggressive before this then you can get a good kick into his stomach.” she takes the gun away from Clint and gets into position.

“Now if he’s just a little wuss and you can tell he’s scared out of his mind, you can go for the less violent approach,” Clint says. Natasha point the gun in the middle of his face. “One hand will grip the wrist firmly, the other quickly grabs the barrel of the gun and twist the gun away from you and pull quickly. Be very quick” He performs the move with ease. “Or if the person is clearly not in their right mind have it be under the influence, grip their wrist firmly, careful of your thumb, grab the barrel and twist it away towards them.” he performs the move and suddenly the gun is in his hand as he points it towards Natasha. “Got it?” they look at Peter.

“Uh, yeah…?” Peter squints his eyes, probably thinking over the maneuvers. He’s biting his bottom lip.

“C’mon kid.” he beckons the kid over to him.  

They go at it for a while, going over the move slowly and showing it to him step by step.

“What if someone comes from behind?” he asks.

“Great question,”  Natasha says as if she’s been waiting for Peter to say that. Peter watch as Clint and Natasha get into position again, Clint pointing the gun to her back. “Twist towards the person quickly, use an underarm hold, one gripping close to his shoulder and the other at his wrist and deliver a blow or two to his gut and then his groin. After he’s bent over in pain, keep your arm closest to the hand and lock it, pull your body away and yank the gun out.”

“You’re quick, so use that to your advantage,” Clint comments. “Use your body to your advantage also, if whoever it is pulling you toward them, use that momentum and deliver a quick blow. A headbutt, a blow to the gut, either one.”

Peter studies the movements and nods. Peter sits as he hugs his knees and watches with interest.

“Nearly the same with a knife, but just as dangerous. You never know if the knife is laced with something so be real quick,” Clint says as he pulls out a knife out from his person. He points it at Natasha, who puts the gun away. “Now, if ya got a knife to you from behind, you don’t have much wiggle room, so you have to make some.” Natasha gets into position as Clint wraps an arm around her neck.

“Go for the two G’s. Gut and groin. Hit hard enough to wind them. Elbow in the gut several times until they loosen their grip. When they do, grab that arm twist toward and under that arm and hold. The pain should be enough to have their grip loosen on the knife.” Natasha moves step by step slowly, twisting under the arm she grabbed and pulled lightly. “It also works if they so happen to grab the back of your hair,” she points out. She lets Clint go.

“Alright kid, we’ll walk you through this until you know it by heart.” Clint motions the boy to come over.

They go at it for a while, both S.H.I.E.L.D agents go through each defense movement step by step, going in quicker when Peter’s reaction gets quicker. They also mix it up and see how the kid would react and just as they would predict, he startles though he quickly recovers from it and goes with the flow.

They then move onto sparring, and Clint gets a taste of how bendy and slippery the kid can really get. Don’t get him wrong, Clint to a certain extent is flexible (thus him crawling through his natural habitat aka the air vents) from his time in the circus, but the kid has him and Natasha beat.

When Clint tries to get Peter into a choke-hold from behind, the kid just uses his hold and brings his lower body up and nearly gets Clint into a choke hold with his legs before he let Peter go.

He’s a very flippity and bendy kid.

Then, an idea came to Clint, making him smile with glee. Natasha being his partner for a long time knows what smile this is.

“Don’t you dare,” Natasha calls him out.

“What?” he says innocently.

“Don’t teach him any bad habits.” he waves her off.

“Kid will somehow find himself crawling through some vents someday, might as well teach him the how-to’s of it.” Natasha sighs but knows he makes a point.

Crawl very fast and quietly. Know how big the vents are. It’s good to have a blueprint and study ahead of time so you won’t make a wrong turn and get lost. Also, make sure the place that you’re about to crawl through the vents isn’t infested with bugs.

He’s almost gotten over his phobia for lady bugs.

Though he’d probably be right at home if it's an infestation of spiders. Clint could hear the kid now, squealing in pure delight at all the spiders he’s just uncovered.

One thing for sure is that Clint doesn’t have to worry about the kid much. He learns fast.

“Now lets see how you fare against two people.” Natasha grins, standing next to Clint. Peter gracefully pushes himself up and flips backwards.

“Uh-I’m totally not ready but you’re going to come at me anyways,” Peter says and immediately dodges an incoming high kick from Natasha. Clint comes swooping in and goes for his legs, sweeping a leg but Peter reacts quick and flips horizontally to avoid a hold attempt from Natasha.

As soon as he lands, Clint shoves his foot on his chest and shoves Peter, causing him to stumble backwards. He evades another series of punches and kicks from Natasha and wow is she brutal.

“You can’t dodge forever.” Natasha huffs out.

“I’m totally fine with dodging!” Peter yelps out and dodges a toy arrow.

 

**.:.**

Bucky steps out of the shower, feeling slightly better than before.

Though overall he still feels pretty shitty.

He just wishes the nightmares will stop. He knows it’s affecting Steve too, they were supposed to be up two hours ago and help Peter, but damn it Bucky’s control has slip and he ends up in a corner tucking himself away. It takes Steve nearly an hour and a half to coax him out of the corner. Steve helps him with some breathing exercises that he slightly remembers giving to Steve back in the day with his asthma.

The heat radiating from Steve’s body beside Bucky as he sits on the bed again is one of the reasons why Bucky doesn’t completely lose it. He’s Bucky’s anchor, the person that still weighs him down to reality, to the present.

But then there’s the god forsaken arm. It’s heavy and cold and it hurts. But he’s so use to the pain that he ignores it. He’s so use to the cold and the heaviness of it that he ignores it all, until Bucky’s almost feeling like himself again. Then it becomes a growing problem. The metal arm is still a huge reminder of his link to Hydra. It feels like a damn magnet and he just wants to rip the damn thing off.

Bucky sighs harshly and runs his flesh fingers through his hair. His damn long hair that’s also getting slightly annoying over time.

“Sorry,” he says to Steve, who gives him a look.

“There isn’t anything to say sorry for, Buck. I’ve had my fair share of nightmares the first few months after i woke up in this time. Still can’t stand the cold.” Steve picks up the nightstand that got knocked over. “Besides, Nat and Clint are down there with him teaching him how to disarm a weapon.”

Bucky scoffs. “Shouldn’t be too hard, kid is like a damn noodle,” he mutters out the last part. “Barton better not teach him how to crawl through the vents, we don’t need to teach him bad habits.”

Steve snorts. “Least he isn’t going to get stuck. He’s very narrow even with his built physique.”

They usually do this. Just casually talk back and forth after Bucky’s episode. It grounds him. It calms him down.

Bucky breathes, relaxing every tense muscle in his body. The dark room is then bathed in sunlight as Steve presses the button to let the daylight filter in.

“ _Good morning Captain, Sergeant. Per your request, Mr. Parker is in the gym with Ms. Romanov and Mr. Barton.”_

“How’s he doing, Jarvis?” Steve asks as he takes a shirt off and throws it in a hamper. Jarvis answer him as he fishes another one in his closet.

“ _Mr. Parker seems to develop a wonderful skill in evasive tactics.”_ The A.I. says with a hint of amusement. “ _Ms. Romanov seems to be breaking the habit of his, but the progress is slow.”_

“The kid is still afraid of hurting someone,” Bucky says as he snatches a shirt Steve throws at him.

“I don’t blame him,” Steve recalls as his mind fleets over the early memories of his first few weeks with his new strength after the serum.

_“Also, sir has requested a meeting with everyone after Mr. Parker’s leave later tonight.”_

“Of course,” Steve says dryly.

“C’mon, let's head down and see how the kid is doing,”  Bucky says as he heads towards the door.

Steve sees an amusing sight before him once he walks into the Gym. Natasha, Clint and Peter were still sparring, but it seems to be a two way hold. Peter wraps his legs around Clint’s neck and Natasha has her own thighs locked around Peter’s neck. They were twirling around on the ground.

Steve clears his throat. “Morning, guys,” he greets.

“Not now,” Natasha grunts out. Clint just waves at them and goes back to trying to pry the boy off his throat. “Clint, are you even trying?” he flips her off and signs at her.

 _Are you?_ He signs.

Clint then drives a knuckle into the kids sides and drag them up and down, earning a loud shriek from him. He immediately lets go and flips off Clint. Natasha doesn’t bother letting go and goes with the momentum. She curls into him to avoid her head hitting the ground.

Peter finally drops to the ground and taps on her thigh repeatedly, indicating he gives in. He stays on the ground when Natasha finally lets go. The woman rolls away from him and sits up, but doesn’t bother to stand.

Neither does Clint.

“Mind if we tag in?” Steve asks the spies. It’s Peter’s last day before he goes back home and Steve wants to put in as much as they can teach as possible.

“Ugh, c-can we have like, a ten minute break or something?” Peter says.

“Same,” Natasha says as massages her thighs.

“Ditto,” Clint wheezes out.

.:.

Peter’s body aches.

Sure he now has super strength and super this and that, but constant cram training taxes his body. Especially when he’s sparring. He doesn’t have a moment to breathe before someone is on him and jabbing at him from left to right.

On top of that they’re going at him with a knife, one of which he’s not sure if it’s a fake or a real one but he really doesn’t want to find out at all.

Black Widow is coming at him with no pauses and he’s grateful for him being very acrobatic because when he falls flat on his back she holds the knife between her toes, drops down and swings her foot around at his side. Peter curls up on his shoulders quickly and snaps up into the air just centimeters away from where he was.

When Clint swings an arm at him, Peter finally just grabs the arm and wraps his feet around the man’s shoulders and twists his arm back. He hears the man grunt, not expecting it at all. 

“Hold still now,” Natasha chimes, running up to them and dropping down and then bringing her legs up and shoves her feet with full force at the boy’s back. Peter, with his legs still locked on the man’s shoulders, lets go and swings out of the way. Using the momentum, he sticks to the man’s back and crawls up on top of his shoulders and locks his legs around the man’s neck.

“Say-- _ holy cow!” _ Peter yelps when Natasha had use Clint’s arm and launches herself up and gets her thighs around his neck from behind. 

“I’m gonna keep squeezing kid.”

“I can barely feel it--oh nevermind, i can feel it n _ ow.” _ Peter grunts when she squeezes harder. Holy crap how strong is she?! “You let go and i’ll let go!” 

“Then i guess Barton is going to have some core strength training while we’re at it.” Natasha says.

“ _ Lucky me, _ ” he says hoarsely. 

And that’s when Steve and Bucky walks in on. Clint laughs and just drops with no warning, earning a hard grunt from Natasha and a loud  _ Oof _ from Peter. 

Peter also hopes the man will never say anything about him being ticklish. 

“M-morning Steve, Bucky,” Peter waves as he’s recovering.

“How are ya feeling, Pete?” Steve asks as he’s stretching out his limbs. Nearby, Bucky snatches a gatorade from the mini fridge in the wall and tosses one at Peter, who catches the bottle with ease. Peter thanks the man as he sits up and downs half the bottle before coming up for air.

“A little sore,” he admits. “So what’s the agenda for today?” he asks.

“Still going off what you just went through. I’ll spar with you and Bucky’s going to jump in whenever, and then if someone else is up to it, they can pop right in too,” Steve finishes, leaving Peter with his mouth wide open.

“Four people?!” he shrieks slightly. 

“Three, don’t worry kid i’m sitting out,” Clint waves him off as he sits against the wall.

“Don’t worry, son, we’ll go easy on you.” Steve smiles at the boy.

“I was already going easy on him, i can’t go easier,” Natasha mutters as she takes a swig of her gatorade. Peter groans and drops back down to the ground.

“If you do, Steve will let you touch  _ it,” _ Bucky says. Everyone looks at his with confusion until Peter pops up and looks as him with suspicion. Natasha mouths the word  _ It  _ to Clint, who shrugs in return.

“ _ It? _ ” he repeats and gasps when the man draws a circle in the air. “ _ No, _ really?!” Peter pops up on his feet with excitement. Peter looks at Steve, eyes big and full of hope. Steve smirks and nods. “C’mon, I’m ready!” he bounces on his feet.

When the boy has his back to them, Steve leans towards Bucky’s ear and whispers.

“ _ It?” _

“ _ Your shield, ya punk.” _

_ “ _ Oh.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, for those who are curious, i just took play by play from KRAV MAGA TRAINING • The Fastest gun disarm (Tutorial) via YT. And Disarming a Handgun From Behind | Krav Maga by Funker Tactical - Fight Training Videos, also on YT.


	14. Chapter 14

The last day of training went by well. It's a great thing that Peter is a very fast learner. Quick and very agile plus super strength, Steve knows he doesn't have to worry much. He can tell the kid has a good heart, just by the look in his eyes. Still full of innocence. It's something he doesn't want Peter to lose.

During their spar earlier, Peter has been picking up moves rather fast. The kid manages to clip Steve right in the jaw, a move that Natasha had performed on him and just barely connect to his jaw. Things slowly got a bit messy, and it all ends with Bucky instinctively catching Peter off guard and giving him a boot to the stomach. It surely surprised the boy and winded him. Steve could see the move coming, but Peter seem to have froze all of a sudden and that's when Bucky hit him. The only noise in the gym was Peter wheezing like Steve did when he had asthma. Steve calls the end of the spar there.

"Ugh, karma-" he wheezes "-is brutal." Peter closes his eyes and blinks slowly, drawing concern out from Bucky. The boy's breathing is still staggering.

Bucky's been hovering over the boy feeling incredibly guilty and boy was he tense. Steve notices him finally relaxing after Peter finally caught his breath and let out a groan of pain. Natasha just corrects the boy on what he did wrong and Clint is just relaxing on the side of the gym completely unharmed.

"You good there, twerp?" Bucky says as he squats down next to Peter, who nods.

"Too many things happening at once, then everything went... _white?_ " Peter squints his eyes trying to find the right word.

"Is that why you froze?" Steve asks. The boy just shrugs, not knowing how to answer.

"He probably froze because he's starving." Natasha points out. "Did you not have any breakfast? Theres stuff in the fridge to cook, especially on Steve's floor. The man likes to cook."

"Uh, my aunt usually does all the cooking…" Peter sheepishly says.

"Cooking skills: level zero." Clint grunts as he stands.

"Can we get food now? Cause i think my stomach is eating itself." Peter groans out from the hunger.

"You sure its not from the boot you just ate?" Clint smirks at the boy.

"Probably both." Peter takes the hand Bucky stuck out.

Afterwards, things went on pretty smoothly. After training and sparring for hours, Peter has gotten the hang of it and so he let the boy spend time in the lab with Bruce before he finally leaves the tower with Happy. He only had a peek of what the kid had been working on and Steve only assume some type of formula since he's observe Bruce and Tony work with that type of stuff.

Bruce also tells him that the kid is intelligent.

So Steve has no need to worry. After all, the kid will still be checking in with them.

But darn it all, he still can't help but worry for the kid.

He wouldn't have to worry as  _much_  if what happened at the park never happened. Though Steve is still proud and glad of the quick action Peter took to protect the girl, it still worries him because a lot of bad small crimes happen that the NYPD let slip by or can't find. Small 'petty' crimes as other big time heroes refer it as.

It worries him because Peter may step up and become a hero. He's too young for Steve's liking. He should just reap in being a child a little longer until he's an adult. Be a kid while it lasts, after all he's not getting any younger.

Steve had tried to appeal to Fury on the idea of having patrols around the city, and as much as he would like, unless it gets very ugly, like invasion or a lot of people are going to potentially die ugly, then the avengers can't do it. He still needs the avengers on standby. The man apologizes to Steve earnestly, saying that his idea is what he would like happening but the idea would just bring more harm than good. People will be saved, yes, but having a hero would just inspire other rookies to be heroes themselves.

But isn't that what Shield is for? To monitor everything? If bringing out one hero to patrol and take care of crimes happening all over the city will bring out other like minded heroes to come out, wouldn't that be what Fury wanted to begin with?

Or is this because it would most likely inspire others with powers that have hidden and cause trouble?

Of course, Steve is still half and half on it. Inspiring others to be vigilantes and one day it could cost a person their life, especially one that's just too young. And he also doesn't like the fact that Shield wants to monitor everything. They get too invasive into people's privacy. Not a good way to earn someone's trust.

It seems that even Fury is half and half on this for a while. It's a risk, after all, since the Loki incident happened, him bringing on the Avengers initiative was a very desperate move for him already.

But Steve took a risk too. And he became Captain America.

And what happens if another catastrophic incident like Loki and Ultron happen and they need heroes to help out? Sure, they have Eleven on the Avengers right now, a few still under training and learning how to work as a team, but Thor is always out (completely understandable in Steve's opinion) and Wanda is still learning how to fully understand her power. When she does, she'll be a heavy hitter for them for sure.

But will Eleven be enough? They'll need heavy hitters, but also crowd control. The latter is always the most important. Saving lives and making sure the civilians are safe is the most important, on par with getting rid of the threat. Offense and defense, both roles are important. Sure, the Avengers worked in the end during the chituari invasion, but it nearly didn't.

Steve wants to be ready at all costs.

Man, Steve wonders if all the stressful thinking Fury is always under causes him to be bald.

"The paparazzi will mistaken you for a statue if you continue to stand and stare out, cap." Tony drawls as he pours himself a drink. Tony suddenly speaking startles him from his deep thinking and turns to face the man.

" _Sir, it's time for the meeting."_  Jarvis reminds Tony, who nods.

"C'mon Steve. There's lots to talk about." Tony waves the man over to join everyone else in the briefing room.

Hah, if only Tony knew what was going on in his head. Now  _that_  is a lot to talk about. But it's not worth mentioning early.

Steve sighs out and joins Tony as they make their way to the others. He hopes the meeting won't take long.

 

**.:. X .:.**

Its so quiet, you could hear a pin drop.

Everyone knew what Tony wanted to talk about. 

"I'll just jump right into it. Why the hell are you even teaching the kid how to  _fight?_ " Tony starts off, his face is fuming with anger. "I thought he was just suppose to learn how to control strength, and i get teaching him some defense but  _really_ , how to fight?"

Natasha starts by rolling her eyes. "We're just teaching him a few moves. This is New York, getting mugged is a normal here, especially on paydays and weekends." she shrugs. "I see no problem in just teaching him a few defensive maneuvers."

"Teaching him a few moves, that's funny because from what i've seen he was sparring in a three on one match. Against two super humans and two top rated spies. That's a little carried away isn't it." He glares at her.

"It's not like we're teaching him how to kill, Tony." the redhead says as she crosses her arms.

" _Are you kiddi-he's a fifteen year old boy!_  He's just a damn kid, a damn smart kid that has a helluva bright future ahead of him and we can't be teaching him how to be violent! I've seen what you've been teaching him, you two might be teaching him how to defend himself-" Tony gestures to Natasha and Clint "-but those two, especially Cap, has been teaching him how to fight."

"We're teaching him how to control his strength and in situations where his control will slip." Steve defends himself. "I'm teaching him from experience, Tony. I had to learn how to control my strength on my own because i didn't exactly have someone like me back then. I don't want Peter to cause an accident and be guilty for something he can't help. The spars i've been giving him are meant to teach Peter that, and i can't allow him to just go home knowing that he has that much strength in him and little to no idea on how to figure it out. He wasn't kidding when he said he could crush a person just by hugging them."

"He's still just a boy-" Tony scoffs. Bucky snorts, interrupting him.

"-a boy that can leave a damn bruise on Steve,  _twice."_  Bucky points out, causing Tony to snap his mouth shut and look at Bucky.

"Excuse me,  _what?"_  Bucky nods. "The last thing that left a bruise on him were the bots controlled by Ultron and the aliens from the invasion." Tony pauses to look at Banner. "And Hulk if he ever has the chance." Tony throws in the last person.

"Think, Tony. If the kid can do that much to a super solider and practically stop my arm like it was nothing, just imagine what would happen when  _they_  find out, and i'm not talking about Shield." Bucky says slowly to Tony, hoping he'd get the idea.

Tony's face drops and pales, finally understanding what they are trying to tell him. Shit, why didn't he think of that?

"It's Hydra, Tony." Clint says to the man. "That's the reason why we're teaching him how to defend and if he needs to, be on the offence to protect himself. If Hydra finds him and we're not there to help, then he's a goner."

"Peter is just about everything that Hydra is trying to achieve with their recreation of the super solider serum, probably more. You can't blame us for wanting to prepare him." Natasha says.

"What makes you think he's ever going to be under their radar?" Tony asks. "It's not as if he's stepping out into the spotlight and announce he has powers and yada yada."

"Hydra's getting slippery. Thanks to Wanda and her mind sweeping and locating even more Hydra sleeping agents in Shield, it just proves that they're getting smarter. We took their biggest weapon from them-" Natasha is cut off by Bucky.

"-cut one head off, and two shall take it's place." Bucky robotically says with a blank face. Everyone turns to him, Steve being concerned. Bucky looks up at Tony. "If they were in Shield without any of you even knowing, it won't be surprising if they have agents in public places like the hospitals, dirty cops in NYPD or even in school where kids can easily be influenced."

Tony tugs his hair as he growls in frustration. That's something he hadn't thought of. Kids turn out missing without a trace. Human trafficking is a thing after all. And who knows, some kids in a bad situation might even take offers if that is their only way out.

"He's probably under their eye already then." Bruce speaks up at last. Natasha's poker face breaks and her expression is cast with confusion. "Hydra is after potential. Those with great potential that can pose as a threat to them. There are an outstanding amount of gifted students that are ripe for the picking for Hydra. If you look up the kids that go missing, a lot of them were promising future prodigies. Peter is young, and a few subjects he's doing average in, but his intelligence in science and engineering is remarkable."

"Don't forget about Gwen either. She deduced the changes in the physiology of Peter's body. Wasn't even surprised at all when she saw him using his powers. Amazed, but not at all surprised. She is the number one student in Midtown." Clint says. "Though she's set her eyes on Oscorps, and that place has always been under Fury's keen eye."

"I'm sure she's smart enough to stay out of trouble, she is the chief's daughter." Bruce says to calm Clint's worriness over her.

"So we only need to keep an eye on Peter for now. I wouldn't mind going undercover as a faculty member and keep a close eye on the kids, but Fury will grow suspicious and i can't bail out of there when i'm called in for a mission." Natasha voices her thinking.

" _Damn it._ " Tony strokes his face and stares off, thinking. "I can track the kid wherever he goes. Keep an eye on him through there."

"What, bug his dinky flip phone?" Clint snorts.

"Which he built by the way." Bruce mutters.

"Better yet, i'll give him a Stark phone. Add some new  _features_ on there just for safety." Tony mutters off in thought.

"Tony you can't just track him for the rest of his life." Steve interrupts Tony's thinking.

"Watch me." he huffs wryly.

"You're just doing exactly what Fury would do." Steve glares at Tony, who scoffs.

"As if he isn't tracking us anyways."

" _Not since the new upgrade."_  Jarvis says, and Steve swears the AI is smirking.

"The only difference between us keeping tabs on the kid and Fury, is that we're doing this for the kid's safety. Fury keeps track of people that he deems as a threat and detain them if ever needed." Natasha points out for Steve.

"He's just a kid, his voice is still  _cracking_ for god's sake! I can't even imagine him as a threat to society and that instills fear into people. He practically cried when he saw all the spiders i fried in the vent when he was trying to look for more spiders." Tony says with exasperation. God, he couldn't stand the look Peter had. It made him feel so damn guilty for killing the bug.

"While you're right on the fact that he's just a kid with a cracking voice, but  _that's_  the reason why Fury will keep tabs on him. Because he's just a  _kid_ , a kid that can inflict damage to Captain America and stop the Winter Soldier's metal arm like it was nothing. Now, imagine how strong Peter will be when he's finally an adult.  _That's_  why Fury keeps tabs on people." Natasha finishes.

"It's not like we're teaching the kid to be an avenger. No way in hell is he ever going to especially when he's still a minor. Kid deserves a somewhat normal life." Clint adds his two cents.

"Sorry Steve, i'm with them on this." Bucky says. "It's either the fancy phone or one of us is going to have to keep tabs on him all the time." Steve frowns as he processes the information. He doesn't like any of it one bit, but at least the phone is better than having someone on him all day.

"Fine." Steve says. Nearby, Tony just rolls his eyes and sighs.

"Look, do i want to track the kid for who knows how long? No, I don't. You training him to control his strength and how to defend himself in case people come after him is a great idea. My idea is so that we can get to him before he ever has the chance to defend himself. Either one of us is a phone call away and he won't ever feel like he's alone. You have your way of protecting him, i have mine." Tony says to Steve.

"It's better than putting an  _actual_  chip on him." Natasha mumbles. Now  _that_  is invasive.

"Fine, fine i get it. Since he does have to drop by every week or two, i'd feel more comfortable with having someone get him half way." Steve says. Bucky nods.

"I can get him."

"Great, now that that's over with, Jarv, buddy how's your baby brother doing?" Tony nearly coos at his AI.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where the avengers are mature adults and have a nice adult conversation and make a compromise and not get in each others faces and not keep shit to themselves ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Anyways, bless your hearts ya'll. I was afraid of any comments i get will be mean and you know, be that type of reviewer. You guys are so lovely! 
> 
> Also, some of you asked and i wanted to clarify, Civil War did not happen. (It broke my heart to pieces). With Cap being the mature damn adult he is he marched his dorito self and talked with Tony about his parents. Since Civil War didn't happen, Scott Lang was never introduced to them. In case you guys did the head count of all eleven of the avengers at that moment. (Well, minus three since Vision, Wanda and Pietro went off to travel and get acquainted with things. They on vacation.) I wanted to add him in because i love Ant-Man but i realized he didn't happen yet. But in due time! He'll pop up eventually. 
> 
> And no, they don't have their new Avenger's facility yet. Let's just say that it's still under renovation that Tony is supervising and making sure it's perfect. 
> 
> Also question: Like, i know that Tony sold the Stark/Avenger's tower, and moved to the new avengers facility but what about Stark industries themselves? Like will Pepper and all of Stark employees (you know the people that helped ran the building i mean look at it it's huge) move there or? I assume so, but i would also assume Tony would separate Avengers and Stark Industries. I don't know. 
> 
> See you in the next chapter~


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gee--i wonder what the others are up to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look, 3.6k! 
> 
> And i really hope i manage to get their personality right. There's not much interaction between certain characters so it was tough figuring things out. 
> 
> And as i was researching a fuck ton and read a lot of cool things. Don't know if i should mix it into the story and i kinda want to tbh. Oh well, we'll find out later.  
> This chapter happens right after the meeting between Tony and the others and the following morning.

Somewhere on the other side of the united states, three avengers are currently in the midst of packing their things in a hurriedly fashion.

The twins and the newly born synthetic human had decided to take up Tony’s offer and Steve’s suggestion on taking off and relaxing for a while. And the exposure is great for Vision, since he wanted to understand humans a bit more.

Though Vision does understand he can access the internet and gain knowledge from there on just about anything, he quite understands that learning from the internet would also result in a bad influence for example.

Take Ultron for example.

So he took it upon himself to read as many books he can to understand. They had stayed in Washington, DC for a good week and a half just to scour the library of congress, a place that enraptured Vision. Wanda had enjoyed it for the most part and it was easy to locate Vision. He read a lot.

Wanda and Pietro had enough and finally was able to drag the android out.

They traveled a lot, staying in one place no longer than three days at most. They covered a lot in two months. They had just left the grand canyon and were on their way to a place where Wanda’s been wanting to visit. Hamilton Pool located right in Texas. They had took a pit stop to rest up until Wanda had woken everyone up, saying they had to go back to the grand canyon.

“I can get it for you if you just let me go alone,” Pietro offers, yet he’s still stuffing his sister’s things into her bag as she paces back and forth.

“I’m not letting you go off that far by yourself,” She snaps at him as she grabs her bag from Pietro’s hand. “Besides, it was my fault, i was the one that lost it.”

“C’mon then, it won’t take long. The grand canyon isn’t _that_ big.” Pietro gathers his things and quickly gathers his sister into his arms. “You ready, Vis?” he asks the android. The android is currently in deep thought.

“Vision?” Wanda asks, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“My apologies,” he hovers over to Pietro and holds onto his shoulder. “But i believe we should find a place to stay near the canyon until day breaks, it’s quite hard to search in the dark.” Both twins dropped their bags.

“ _Wanda,_ ” Pietro groans. In his sister’s worry, he had forgotten the obvious as well.

“Sorry, but i need to find it as soon as possible,” Wanda says as her brother puts her down on the ground.

**.:.**

It’s hours later at dusk when the twins and Vision leave and made their way back to the grand canyon. Pietro groaning at the sight because he has a lot to cover. They manage to pinpoint the possible areas but he wants to be a hundred percent sure.

“I forgot how deep it went.” Pietro looks down, shrugs and sped on down. Wanda and Vision float down and start to look.

Its when Wanda and Pietro are off scanning when Vision gets a phone call from Tony, who had called the night before.

“Ah, hello Tony. How is everything in New York?” Vision asks as he stops and touches the ground softly. He had been dippin down and up looking.

“A bit eventful is all i can say. How is your road trip so far?”

“Very eye opening. We were well on our way to a place called Hamilton Pool located in Texas until some rather unfortunate events happened. Wanda seems to have lost something very important to her and we’re sweeping the Grand canyon as we speak. Pietro is doing a spectacular job on searching thoroughly. Speed comes in handy in a large area. Wanda is carefully looking through her memories and seeing where it had dropped,” Vision reports to Tony.

“What did she lose?” Tony’s voice rises a bit.

“A necklace that belonged to her mother. Pietro has their mother’s ring.” Vision looks over to Wanda, still in a trance.

“Hm, well, good luck. I sent some eventful photos of what went on recently, it should be amusing and lift her spirits up a bit.” Vision hears a shuffle from Tony through the phone. “I gotta go. Need to talk to Pep about something. Have fun, don’t forget protection, i’m not ready to be a grandad, though i’d make a--”

“Goodbye, Tony.” Vision sighs and hangs up on the laughter coming from the phone.

Wanda finds the closest location or area of where it was dropped. She had been hovering at the time and the string had snapped and dropped.

Its down the thicker parts of the grand canyon, where hikers roam, but for the necklace it dropped quite a long ways, but that’s where Vision comes in handy. Since he can phase through just about anything, he can easily get down there without a problem and get it.

Pietro in the meantime is downhearted to learn he was unable to find it, but nonetheless glad they were able to find it. During his run, he had saved a few animals from being stuck in a hole and a few hikers that seem to be stuck down a crevasse.

He definitely does not tell Wanda about the pool he found with lovely bare skinned ladies. A flash of his pearly white teeth earn him an instant invite.

**.:. X .:.**

Sam’s vacation had been quite...eventful. A large part of his vacation he had successfully convince his mother, sister and her son Jody to move out of Harlem. And since his sister, Sarah, had a husband stationed in Washington D.C, they finally agreed and move. So Sam had managed to arrange and help out during the move and when he finally was able to visit, they were boxing the last of their stuff.

It was a big relief for him, because a lot of trouble happen to be in new york and especially where his family lived, in Harlem, a lot of gang related violence have sparked up. Moving them to D.C. had calmed his nerves. He had sold his place he still had (a get away from the avengers) and helped get a better one for his mom. It’s close to his sister but still where she could be independent. Apparently she made a friend already.  

After that was just helping his mom settle in and making her feel comfortable and showing her around the spots he frequents to all the time and the best spots in the park. His mom admits that she’s glad she’s out of harlem and in such a nice place as D.C.

Sam had  went out to grab food he ordered (he needs the exercise anyways) for the guests coming over, for her new friend and her son. He’s on his way back when he gets a phone call. Not bothering to glance at the I.D he answers.

“Hel-”

“He’s alive!” he hears a voice shout out away from the speaker.

“Barton?” he questions. “What do you mean i’m alive, i went on vacation.”

“Stevie went to check on you in Harlem and saw your place empty. Plus you’re out of state and didn’t mention that, soooo-” Clint says.

“It’s not my place to begin with,” he snorts. He then stops. Trackin-- _Redwing_. “Stark’s tracking me?”

“Don’t flip out, he has one on all of us.”

“Not Natasha.”

“It’s Natasha.”

“True. Gonna hang up now, by--”

“ _Wait!”_ an annoying voice interrupts them. There was a rustle and a fight for the cell phone before the new voice spoke up. “I feel _incredibly_ left out, you know.”

“Redwing feels incredibly violated,” he retorts.

“Hey, safety precaution, what happens when you lose it?” Tony defends. “It’s also concerning that you treat the thing like it has feelings.”

“You are the _last_ person to tell me that.”

“... _Dumm-E no, i didn’t mean it like tha--”_ Sam laughs. Tony apparently hurt the bot’s feelings. A sigh. “Thanks, Wilson.”

“Is there a reason why i’m not hanging up right now?” Sam asks as he made his way to the driveway of his mom’s new home. He took out the keys and jiggled it into the lock. Sam could hear laughter from inside and a man’s voice that sounded awfully familiar call out that he got the door.

“Yeah, why are you two meeting behind my back? I’m hurt,” Tony feigns hurt. Sam’s face scrunches up in confusion.

“What are you even _talking_ about.”

“C’mon, i can see you guys on my map. You and--” Sam didn’t hear the last part of whatever Stark is going to say because as soon as the door opens, the man standing in the doorway froze too, recognizing him. Sam promptly hangs up after muttering he has to go and stuffs the phone in his pocket.

“Oh! Sweety you’re back! Roberta here made it while you were gone!” his mom appears at the doorway. She ushers him inside. “Now, this is my friend that live across from me. This is Roberta and her son, James Rhodes.”

Oh, whelp.

He did not expect that.

**.:.**

Their mom’s went on to chat, leaving the two men alone.

“Ain’t this a small world,” Rhodey says from his seat on the island bar. Sam is in the kitchen putting things away and loading up the dish washer. “I thought you lived in Harlem?” he asks.

“Used to. I’ve been trying to convince my family to get away from there. Finally did after pulling some strings i used to have,” he mutters the last part.

“Cause of the crazy shit that’s been happening in New York lately?”

“Part of the reason. Place wasn’t good to begin with,” Sam says as he dries his hands and tossed the rag on the counter near the sink.

“Hulk?”

“ _Nah_ , neighborhood has been getting too many gangbangs. Never felt comfortable leaving my family there. I used to live here for a while, it’s actually how i met Steve. The man flipped out when he saw my mom’s old empty apartment in Harlem.”

“Let me guess, Tony?” Rhodey says amusingly. “I wouldn’t worry too much, that’s just the way he does things. Keeps him sane to know where his friends are.”

“At _all_ times?”

‘Yeah...he can overdo it sometimes. I learn to just go along with it,” Rhodey shrugs. “Also, i wouldn’t ignore Tony if i were you. He’s like…” the man stops, trying to find the right words. “...he’s like a puppy. The more you ignore him, the more annoying he gets. And then he’s going to get into trouble.”

“And what, Pepper is his owner?” says half assed.

“Exactly,” Rhodey says, causing stir of laughter from Sam.

“You got any other family or is it just you and your mom?” Sam asks, not noticing how Rhodey froze a little bit. Sam hops up on the counter and took his plate and starts to pick at it.

“Just my mom and niece.” Sam nods, knowing to not push.

“Sister and her husband and their son Jody. They have a place nearby somewhere. Husband’s stationed here," Sam says. The two men continue to chatter, Rhodey asking about his time serving and Sam doing the same.

**.:. X .:.**

As a way to not disturb any humans of his current form, Shield had given Vision a prototype of a newer version of their Photostatic Veil. One that covers the entire body. Of course, Tony has to play around with it.

Tony didn’t necessarily trust Shield, so any tech is overlooked by him. He mutters something about changing the physical features because what they chose for him was terrible.

Whatever they were going to give him as a human form had made Tony grimace. So the man toyed around with it, updating and making everything a better. Tony insists he’ll make a better one but he can use the ‘crappy’ shield one for now (he has a thing with people close to him using technology not belonging to him apparently).

When Vision tests it before Tony, there had been a look on his face he couldn’t quite decipher. There was a smile to the man’s face that he only shares with Pepper, there was vulnerability in his eyes that he could find.

Tony doesn’t say anything and turned Vision around to look at the mirror.

“How’d you like it buddy?” Tony asks.

Vision takes a moment and turns around, going side to side and observing his new self. He smiles at his reflection.

“Suits! Almost forgot, but you’re traveling so i doubt you need anything fancy. Just causal.” Tony zips off to his walk in closet and rummages through it. He pops back out a moment later with a suit in hand. “This should fit, don’t worry it’s clean and yes, take it. The suits just hanging there being wasted anyways.” Tony hands him the suit.

Vision hold the suit and looked at Tony. “Thank you.” The comment makes Tony smile again. Again, the expression that he had never seen him make around the Avengers during his time here.

“If you don’t want to attract anyone, i suggest you change into that. Throws people off when they’re trying to find a six foot three red man.”

“I’ll shall keep the suit safe. I’ll also send photos to Jarvis during the duration of our trip.”

“Perfect.” Tony had smiled.

As Vision thought back, the device had been a lot better. It was also waterproof so if Vision was caught up in some rain it would be fine.

Or if they wanted to go swimming.

Having dealt with the aftermath of Ultron, and well, Wanda, her brother and Vision just did not have any proper clothings for swimming. For the moment, they made a stop by a shopping mall before making their way to their next destination. The three went into a department store and split up. Vision and Pietro heading towards the men’s aisle and Wanda heading to the bathing suits.

There were many to choose from and Vision did not know where to choose. He had check the sizing of his own clothes Tony had gifted him and chooses a simple dark blue trunks. He looks over and spots Pietro speeding through choices and goes from one rack to another.

“Ah-ha!” a moment of wind causing the clothes to flutter everywhere later, and Pietro steps beside him, grinning as he held his up. The colors matches what he wears as Quicksilver (as he so named himself).

Vision glances over to Wanda, who is still shifting through bikini tops. She already has a bottom, but she seems to be looking for the matching top. Before he knows it, he’s already making his way towards her, Pietro following after him.

“I forgot, i hate shopping. Too many decisions,” Wanda mutters.

“You can just go with a one piece,” Pietro offers.

“Too constricting.”

“Here--” Pietro looks around and sees nobody watching and zips around. Wanda just ignores him and still looks through the rack.

“Does it matter if you find the matching pair?” Vision asks.

“It looks nicer.”

“You’d look stunning either way,” he says honestly. Wanda looks up at him and blushes.

“Found one, it was on a rack near the dressing rooms.” Pietro shrugs his shoulders. “It’s your size and look, dark red.” he grins happily.

“Really.”

“What?” Wanda rolls her eyes and takes it. She grabs a cover up she’s been eyeing. It was black with beautiful butterfly monarch wings on the back.

“Let’s go,” she says with a small smile on her face.

**.:.**

That night, Vision remembers of the photos Tony sent them earlier and takes the phone out and looks through the text messages.

_Don’t mind the new kid, we’ll explain once you are all back. In the meantime, enjoy these hilarious photos. :) - TS_

Vision flips through the photos. The first one was of Mr. Barton climbing up into the vents but finding out the vent is a bit small and Ms. Romanov has to pull him out.

The second photo, Mr. Rogers and Sergeant Barnes seem to be in the middle of sparring but one was tugging hair and the other resorted to biting. It was a ridiculous look for two grown men.

The third photo is where it starts to get interesting. There is a boy crouching at the kitchen area, hands scooping up food and practically swallowing it. From the look of it, Vision assumes he’s sleep walking.

The next isn’t a photo, but a short clip. One moment the boy was eating, the next Mr. Barton hops down from a vent and the boy inhumanly leaps into the air and stick to the ceiling. Tony probably edited the video because there was a red arrow pointing to a downfall of food and it landed all over poor Mr. Barton. Vision couldn’t help but chuckle. The photo after this was of the man covered in food.

The next photo was the unnamed boy, very surprised, in the arms of Bucky.

A photo of Mr. Rogers smiling to the boy as they both make conversation.

A photo of the boy being pelted with ping pong balls and him tripping into the pile. There was a short clip of Bucky laughing.

The next causes a tiny stir of laughter from Vision. It’s night and the boy is wearing what looks to be sleep wear, but the articles of clothing, well to be more precise the images on the clothings, were amusing. The boy did not find it funny but Vision knows for sure that Tony is laughing.

Another is of the boy and a girl at the table with the rest of the avengers, the boy is holding a large arachnid that spooks Tony, but the boy is extremely ecstatic.

“What are you doing over here laughing?” Wanda wanders over to him. They currently spend the night at a hotel. Wanda had just came out from her shower.

“It seems we have a new addition to the team. I’m not quite sure, but one thing for sure is that Tony has taken a liking to the boy,” Vision says with a smile and hands the phone to her. Pietro at the moment is running around the area, burning off the sugar he just consume.

“He’s adorable,” Wanda says with a smile and flips through the content and laughs. “Pietro will love this photo.”

“He’s never going to let Mr. Barton live it down,” Vision chuckles. Speaking of the devil, the man walks in at that moment.

“The red man starts to laugh once i leave,” Pietro says as he shoves his shoes off his feet. The man zips into the shower and not even ten seconds later zips out, hair wet and towel wrapped around his waist.

“Here, you’re going to love one of the photos,” Wanda says with glee. Pietro takes the phone from here and raises an eyebrow and then starts to laugh uncontrollably.

“ _New favorite photo_ \--this will be the wallpaper!” he laughs as he flips through the contents. “Who’s the kid?”

“Don’t know, but we’ll find out when we return from our trip soon so we’ll find out soon enough,” Wanda answers her brother. “Now put some clothes on already and head to bed, both of you.”

“Yes, yes i know.”  Pietro rolls his eyes and slips into bed with his sister, something they normally do frequently. Vision has a bed to himself because the man is gigantic and he’s stiff as a board. The light flicks off, courtesy of Wanda and her powers.

Pietro is still giggling at the photo of Clint covered in food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before any of you comment, i see nothing wrong with Wanda and Pietro sharing and knowing things about each other. They're family, brother and sister and twins. Sharing bed and Pietro happening to know what size Wanda is normal imo.
> 
> Also, I couldn't really call Vision an android, because he's really not. He's too human. He's learning to be human. Since he has the mindstone and that major upgrade, calling him an android just ain't right to me. Other descriptions of him were "android" or "has a synthetic body with Jarvis' AI uploaded and upgrade from Mind Stone." and "Synthetic humanoid"  
> He can do things that robots can't so he aint a robot/android.
> 
> BTW James D'arcy and Paul Bettany are coincidentally both 6'3". So you can assume who the suit Tony pulls out for Vision belongs to.  
> No, Tony didn't make him look like Edwin, but what it would look like if the man had a son.  
> Til next time!


	16. Chapter 16

“Go wait in the car kid, i need to talk to Happy about tomorrow’s schedule.” Tony says as Peter has his backpack in his hand. The clothes he’d worn stuffed inside also.

“Alright, thanks for everything Mr. Stark.” Peter says to the man and heads to the elevator, where Jarvis sends him down to where Happy parked the car. Tony turns to Happy as soon as the kid leaves.

“Alright, i added your number into the kid’s phone so when you’re taking him home just talk to the kid and tell him if anything happens or if needs help he can call you.” Tony says to Happy, who is confused.

“Why me? Wouldn’t it be better for someone else, like one of the Avengers or better yet you?” Happy asks.

“Think of it like him being too shy or embarrassed to ask one of us for help. Like another option he can go to for guidance.”

“He just needs someone he can talk to you mean?” Happy says, understanding what Tony is trying to say.

“Exactly. I’m going to give him this baby because for goodness sakes his phone is ancient.” Tony pulls out a stark phone that’s brand new and most likely tampered with by yours truly, Tony Stark himself.

“You mean his phone doesn’t have your name on it.” Happy says as he takes the phone and slips it into his jacket pocket. He sips on some coffee and made his way to the elevator. “Will do boss. Also, Cap has been standing there terrorizing the window for a while. Might wanna snap him out of it before paparazzi zooms in on him.” Tony sighs as he rolls his eyes. 

“I’ll take care of Grandpa. See ya hap.” Tony says before the elevator shuts on Happy, sending him down to the basement. 

**.:. X .:.**

“So kid, how was your time at the tower? Feeling better?” Happy asks the kid, who had been a bit quiet. Happy notices the boy’s leg bouncing up and down. The boy had snap out of whatever he's thinking about and makes eye contact with him through the rear view mirror. “And before you ask, yes i know everything.”

Peter relaxes, knowing he’s safe with Happy. 

“Uh-I’m good. Kinda bummed that i got to miss the tour though.” Peter admits. Happy just laughs.

“Kid, what you saw nobody else sees unless they have high clearance with Tony. And you got up and personal with the avengers, that’s like any kid’s dream. The other things below are cool, but its just other workers researching’ this and that. Cooler toys are what you got to see. That and you got to work with Bruce Banner.” Happy says to him. It brings a smile to the boy and he chuckles.

“Yeah, i guess i’m pretty lucky.” the boy says, and it's quiet in the car again.

It’s a bit peaceful, that is until the boy pops his head out, nearly scaring the life out of Happy. 

“So, what do you do for Mr. Stark?” Peter asks, wanting a distraction from his thoughts.

“Boss? Well i drive, for one. Bodyguard, i’m just help him when he needs me. His friend.” Happy shrugs. “Kind of his assistant if you want to say that. I overlook important shipments and make sure things are in tip top order. Head of security. I train the new security so they know how to defend and put up a fight if ever needed.” 

“Sounds a lot to deal with.” Peter comments. “If you mind me asking, how did you meet Mr. Stark?” the question leaves Happy thinking.

“I used to be a boxer. After i retired, i went through a lot of odd jobs--which let me tell you kid there ain’t nothing bad about taking them up. Just puts experience and a helluva lot of stories to share one day. You get to meet a lot of interesting people out there. Anyways, i worked at a racetrack, and there was a car still in its experimental stage that crashed pretty bad. Experiments and crashes do not bode well. Everyone was very cautious because from what it looks, the driver could just get out on their own.”

“Did you go in and save them?” Peter asks, interested in Happy’s story. Happy smiles fondly as he remembers the moment that changed his life. 

“You bet. I didn’t care if there were ‘risks’ involved. All i know is that the driver needed help and everyone was too piss slow to react. The door was very loose so i managed to pry it open and drag them out. Lo and behold i dragged Tony Stark outta there. He thanked me and offered me money, but i turned that down and asked him to hire me. Now here i am, several years later.” Happy says and finishes his story.

“That’s so cool. Do you and Tony ever box with each other?” Peter wonders. This stirs laughter from the man. 

“When Pepper drags him out of his lab.”

“Imagine boxing in the Iron Man suit, It’ll be just like those Rock em’ Sock em’ toys.” the boy says with excitement.

“Damn i gotta see that now.” the man mutters under his breath. He wonders how drunk Tony needs to be to convince him to do it. Actually scratch that he probably has blueprints of it somewhere. “Now it's your turn. Tell me somethin kid.” 

Peter is silent.

“Well, i met Tony when i was little. I’m positive he doesn’t remember be at all though. They were giving out toy replicas of his helmet and glove at one of his expos and i had them on.” Peter says. Happy scrunches his face, trying to remember. “You remember a tiny kid standing up to a hammer drone?” Peter urges the man to remember. 

Then Happy gasps, slamming on the brakes when the car in front abruptly stops.

“ _ That was you?!” _ Happy says incredulously as he whips his head back to both check on the boy and stare in awe because wow of all people. Small world. 

“Yup.” Peter says with a smile.

Holy shit, Tony had been trying to find the kid forever. Gave up after several years but Happy knows that the tiny kid is ingrained in the man’s mind. Tony had been trying to find him because the kid left a good damn impression on Tony.

“You are just full of surprises kid.” Happy says.

“Um--can you keep that between us?” Peter bit his lips. Happy raises a brow.

“Why?”

“I just don’t want him thinking i’m some weird crazy obsessive fan or something. That and it was a little embarrassing when i think back on it.” Peter scratches the back of his head. “Please?”

“I won’t tell him.” Damn. Either lie and tell Tony anyway, or keep his promise. And Happy Hogan ain’t no promise breaker. 

“Thanks.” 

They chatted a bit more, but random topics and such. Kid isn’t so bad. When they finally make it to the Parker residence, Happy pulls over. He steps out and heads on over and opens the door for the kid.

“Thanks for the ride, Happy. You’re really cool.” Peter says as he grabs his backpack and steps out of the car.

“Thanks kid. Listen, if you ever need anything, or i don’t know just want to talk feel free to text me.” Happy says.

“Uh you sure? Let me get my pho--”

“Don’t bother. Here.” Happy takes the phone out and tosses it to the kid. “Tony got offended by your phone. Don’t mind him, he does that. It should have my number on there.” Peter’s jaw drops. 

“I--is it--are you sure i can have this?” Peter holds the phone with extreme caution.

“Yeah, don’t worry. He would’ve given it to you in person but he needed to get ready for a late meeting.” the man says.

“T-thanks Happy.” Peter grins. “Bye! Tell Tony i said thanks!”

“No problem kid!” 

**.:. X .:.**

Aunt May squeezes Peter in a tight hug as soon as she hears him announce he’s home.

“Oh, dear are you alright? I heard what happened and i wanted to go and see you in person to see if you were alright--are you still feeling sick?” she asks as shes checking his temperature by feeling his forehead. Peter hasn’t gotten a chance to say anything yet because his aunt is still squeezing him to her chest. Peter feels himself melting in her arms. He wants to hug her tightly, but he can’t. He can’t or else--

“Let the poor boy go and he can explain it to you.” Uncle Ben says. Aunt May releases him and runs her fingers through his hair, brushing a curly lock back. Peter breathes in and out slowly.

“I’m fine now, i feel a lot better. Mr. Stark has the latest tech and they monitored me a lot just to be safe.” Peter says, reassuring her with a big smile.

“I don’t know why he didn’t send you to a hospital.” Aunt May says. The boy shrugs.

“I guess he feels really guilty on what happened in his tower.” Peter lies.

“The man probably didn’t want to alert the press, lord knows they’ll bug us too.” Uncle Ben says. Aunt May sighs and nods. 

“I hope you did your homework, are you hungry? I’m making spaghetti.” she says. Peter glances to his uncle, who gives a thumbs up behind her meaning it's safe.

“Sure, I’m going to hop in the shower. City smell.” Peter scrunches his nose up. 

“Alright, wash up you. Dinner should be ready by the time you’re out.” she says and shoos him away. Peter bounds up the stairs and toward his room. Once he makes it to the safe vicinity of his bedroom, Peter locks the door shut. He slides down the door and pulls his knees to himself. 

He breathes in, and out. 

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

He repeats, fighting off the impending anxiety attack trying to claw its way out. It started to become a problem when he bid farewells and left the tower.

He knows that he should be fine with...well...touching people. The extensive cram training he went through.

So giving his aunt a hug should be okay, except he froze. He didn’t trust himself to wrap his arms around Aunt May tightly and just cry.

Peter strips his clothes off, shaking his head. He doesn’t want to think about it. 

So he plops his backpack down and makes his way to the bathroom that connects to his room. Peter ignores the mirror.

Then, he finds himself under the shower head, the shampoo in his head long washed out. He must’ve ran out because usually Aunt May replaces his empty ones with spare ones that smell like green apples.

His nose twitches. He needs to definitely buy a new shampoo. And soap, like the kind with no fragrances because the smell right now is stinging his nose.

Peter is going to have to make a lot of new adjustments now. He really needs to make a list of shit he needs to change. That, and invest in noise isolating headphones. He swiped some ear plugs from the medical lab earlier after putting away the spiders he found. Bucky knows that he wears them when he’s training, since his hearing bothers him when he really uses his powers. His hair had cover his ears so he doubts the others know. Probably Natasha would know.

Peter breathes in, and out.

He hears a knock on his door when he finally steps out from his bathroom with only a towel around his waist. 

“Uh--just a minute!” Peter scrambles and snatches a t-shirt from his closet and manages to get one leg into his pajama pants when his door opens, revealing his Uncle Ben. “Hi-hey Uncle Ben.” Peter says as he hops and finally gets his last leg into his pants. He ditches the towel and chucks it into the corner.

“Just wanted to talk, see how you’re feeling. How was your time at Stark’s?” Ben asks.

“Oh, it went great. Well, besides being sick but i feel way better now. He showed me his labs and it was so freaking cool.” Peter says the last bit honestly. Ben nods.

“Listen kid, i just wanna say i’m sorry.” Peter hears his Uncle say to him. 

“Sorry for what?”

“Fixing the pipes. I thought you’d be fine if i cranked up the heat in the car but you still managed to get sick.” Ben says.

“Uncle Ben--no. It’s not your fault, I mean i felt completely fine, but you know this time of year, everyone has a bug and spreading it around. Besides, i should thank you. I got to meet Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark! And the rest of the avengers!” Peter says with a bit of a hop to his posture. His face lit up with a smile.  Uncle Ben laughs. 

“I can build bridges, but i can’t fix some damn pipes.” Ben chuckles. 

“Ben watch your mouth!” May hollers from the kitchen. Ben jumps incredulously. 

“How can she hear me?” Peter just shrugs.

“Maybe she has superpowers.” Peter wiggles his fingers. Ben just laughs and throws his nephew a smile. 

“C’mon kid, lets see if your Aunt needs any help in the kitchen.” Ben says. 

“Kay.”

**.:. X .:.**

Dinner had been normal, or at least normal for his aunt and uncle. It had been Peter’s turn to do the dishes but Uncle Ben covered it for him, so Peter returned to his room, laying in his bed.

Peter breathes in, and out.

Inhale.

Exhale.

_ Inhale. _

_ Exhale. _

Peter doesn’t know why he’s suddenly feeling this way, perhaps being in Mr. Starks tower surrounded near the avengers that dealt with difference like him put him at ease. They wouldn’t judge him, and they were trained and strong, so Peter doesn’t have to fear accidentally hurting him, although Steve Rogers belief in Peter’s control makes Peter feel confident. 

Now that Peter is alone, he finally has his thoughts to himself. There is nothing distracting him anymore. 

Peter shifts under his blanket, tossing onto his side. Zoning out, Peter sticks his hand out to a book on the ground. Placing his fingertips onto the back cover of the book he flexes and raises his hand, the book clinging to him. Pages flutter open, notes falling out. He relaxes his hand and the book drops to the floor.

It finally hits him. Like,  _ really _ hit him. He had felt normal as he could be with the avengers, but now?

It finally hits Peter that he’s no longer the same anymore.

He isn’t normal anymore, he isn’t a normal human being with simple normal human problems. He’s different now, he’s different.

He’s not regular ol’ Peter Parker anymore. He knows, deep down him that his life is going to change now. He can’t tell Aunt May or Uncle Ben. He doesn’t want them to know he’s not normal anymore.

He’s not normal anymore.

_ And it scares him _ .

Peter presses a pillow to his face and cries softly, letting what happened the past few days hit him. 

There are things that he didn’t share with the rest of the Avengers of what's exactly different to him, mostly because he wants to have some sense of control in all of this, and he feels like it's not worth mentioning.

Like how cold he easily gets nowadays. He constantly wears a jacket or would op for a long sleeve shirt. And a jacket. It could just be the colder weather but still.

And throw in the fact that he constantly has to have earplugs or something in his pocket to block the noise that can sometimes get overwhelming for him? And feeling the need to invest in some sunglasses that will block out the lights when that gets overwhelming? On a normal bases he can manage, but when his strength or any of his new abilities are in play it cranks up and it makes Peter not want to use it at all, but not using his powers leaves him with a terrible itch. Like he’s just gotta. He gets antsy. When he gets antsy back at the tower, he would just hang upside down. It usually mellows him out. 

Is he over-reacting? How would others react to this? Happy? Excited? 

After Peter had figure out what happened to him, after that shock, he went through feeling of horror and terror. Training had been a great distraction for him the past few days, cause he didn’t want to even think about it. Though Peter would’ve been fine with just his new found flexibility, the strength is something he didn’t want.

It's a responsibility he’s not quite ready for.

Peter is just going to have to deal with it for now, but he doesn’t know if he can fully accept the change. 

Peter breathes in, then out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out. 

Mental exhaustion finally taking over, Peter falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, not that i have anything against the other Peters in the previous Spider-Man films when they got their powers, i always disliked how quickly they adapted to their powers and just knew how much force with their strength, ya know? Like how are they not afraid to break everything they touch? Like with the OF Fantastic Four movie, when Ben is dealing with his powers he's literally breaking everything cause of his strength (and his rocky physical form has a play in that as well but still). With both previous Peters being like "holy shit this is so cool." i wanted my Peter to kinda be like that but also "ahfuckfuckfuckfucknononononowhy." Like "oh shit i'm different now!" but also "oH sHiT iM dIfFeReNt NoW."
> 
> Oh wait, is this what they call angst?
> 
> Anyways, Peter's breakdown scene was happening soon anyways. Now that there are no more distractions and his somewhat safe place is no more, everything that happened and the realization that his life isn't going to be quite the same anymore hits him and he tries to ignore it and distract himself (thus talking and asking Happy lots of questions happened). And the thought that "i can't hug anyone or i'll hurt them" going through his mind, it would just drive me nuts. So i'm just making him a bit more human and above all an insecure kid in my story for a bit. 
> 
> And i really hated how Happy treats Peter in homecoming in the beginning so gdi i'm going to fix it. 'Sides, i really like Peter and Happy being close buds. 
> 
> Thanks for also reading my thought process when writing out this chapter.


	17. Chapter 17

Peter wakes up to his alarm in smithereens. He has a slight hunch that he probably broke it the first time it went off. He shoves the bits and pieces in a box of other broken parts he can possibly salvage for a future project.

Peter lets out a groan, not wanting to face high school at all. The last thing he would want is to be unable to keep a secret and everybody finding out and thinking he’s a weirdo. Peter drags his pillow from between his legs and covers his head.

Focusing a bit, Peter can hear noises coming from the kitchen and living room. He doesn’t quite know how to work it, er, ‘utilize’ his stronger sense so his hearing had jump from one noisy thing to another. From the hot water tank, to the jazz sing Uncle Ben as he sings in the shower. The spray of the water, to the birds chirping in a nest in their attic. He then hears the slight humming from below, something frying in the pan. Aunt May cooking.

Peter’s nose twitches, the strong waft of coffee that she probably prepared for the morning. Usually he loves the comforting smell, but now it’s over powering. 

Peter tunes them out now, but a sudden high pitched alarm screeches out from his backpack. He rolls out of bed, scrambling in his backpack for his flip phone. He finds that his phone wasn’t the culprit. He quickly reaches for the abandoned pair of pants and searches the pockets to find the new sleek stark phone that had the alarm blaring. He checks the time, and he’s safe, not late at all. 

Funny, he never set up an alarm. The only guess he can make is that Mr. Stark had set it up, but the reason being he doesn’t know. He shakes his head, not going to find out why because the alarm snapped him out of his deep thinking. Shrugging, he takes the moment to add the list of numbers he currently has and adds it to his phone. 

After that’s been done and dealt with, Peter is still feeling a bit sluggish. Aunt May won’t bother him for another fifteen minutes, so Peter takes the chance to stretch out his limbs and do some yoga. He throws in a quick couple of pull ups by sticking to the ceiling by his hands. After quickly going past forty, he stops and assumes his normal crouch that he finds relaxing upside down. During his stay, he woke up fairly early and after breakfast, he starts his early training with Steve and Bucky. Running and some warm ups wakes him up. If he doesn’t do something active his restlessness gets terrible. After a few moments, he curls down with one arm and lands as quietly as he can.

“Peter, dear! Time to get up!” Aunt May calls out to him from down the hall. 

“I’m up!” he responds back to her before making his way to the bathroom to get ready. He hops in the shower, toothbrush in mouth and quickly washes himself.

He’s downstairs in record time with about two layers of shirts and his dark gray pants, backpack on his shoulder and skateboard in hand, making his way to the kitchen. “Morning Aunt May, Uncle Ben.” he greets the two. Ben is reading the paper with a cup of coffee and May is-- “Is that for me?” he asks when he spots her putting together lunch in a bag. 

“Yes, a lady from Mr. Stark’s company called me while you were gone the weekend and said you may need some extra food to help boost your immune system up,” she says. “And honestly, i do think you need to eat more, dear.”

“More protein will do the boy some good. Help him grow. You’re about that age where puberty kicks in--” Uncle Ben comments, not bothering to look away from the newspaper.

“Okay, okay i get it!” Peter cuts Ben off, face going red. He does not want to breach that subject with them.  He hears Uncle Ben laugh. “I am a man of science, i know plenty enough.”

“You mean boy.” She pats his cheek. “Alright, off you go now. And be careful on that thing.” she says and points to the skateboard in his hand. 

“Will do, Aunt May.” he leaves a kiss on her cheek and takes the lunch. 

“And here, omelette and ham sandwich with plenty bacon. Eat that on your way.” she says and stick the sandwich in his mouth. He stuffs his lunch in his backpack and swipes a bottle of milk in the fridge. 

“Bye guys!” he says before leaving out the front door.

**.:. X .:.**

Peter rolls into the front gates of Midtown high, swerving around students. He has his headphones in his ears, music playing softly as he make it to the front doors and stops, kicking his skateboard up and in his hands. Last time he rolled straight in, the principal threatened to take it away.

Yeah, not happening this time. 

“Thank you, Mr. Parker.” the principal says with a small cheer.

“Welcome, sir,” he says as he passes him. Peter weaves through the crowd easily, making his way to his locker. He opened it and stuck his board in, grabbing books he needed for the next three periods before lunch time.

So far, so good. 

In.

Out.

Being too distracted in his thoughts, he didn’t notice the footsteps approaching behind him. Peter nearly jumped to the ceiling when he felt a hand slap on his shoulder.

“Hey, Pete! How’re you feeling?” Harry asks with a grin. “Rumors said you upchucked in Stark’s tower.”

“I didn’t puke _ \-- _ is  _ that  _ what everyone’s been saying?” Peter tries to not squeak out. He clears his throat. “I just got a bit sick. I’m fine now, rested during the weekend.”

“Aunt May fawned over you huh?” Harry says. Their conversation interrupts when some kids shout out. 

“Heyy, Osborne!” both Harry and Peter look towards them. The person waves happily at Peter quickly assumes Harry. 

“Hey, man!” Harry says. “I’ll see you around Pete.” his friend quickly says before making his way towards the group. 

Peter just shrugs and goes on with his morning. Stopping by his locker and stuffing his skateboard in and swapping books out for the morning half of his classes. He practically had to shove off a couple making out in front of his locker.

And so his day goes on quite normally. The school setting has him relaxed and from class to class, lectures after lab works Peter has himself immersed in schoolwork and it perfectly distracts him from the stress he has been coping with.

The first four periods had went by smoothly, the skin coloured ear plugs he has in muffles out the harsh sounds, but it's not as worse as yesterday. He hopes that his body slowly gets used to the changes and it dials down.

He’s still not quite sure about his powers, he assumes other senses kick in when he taps into his powers, but noises are still a bit sensitive, smell so far hasn’t attack his senses. The fact that he’s a bit cold still puts him off, but at least it's fall and it won’t strike as weird to others. That and he likes sweaters.

He  _ really _ likes sweaters.

He practically steals a few of Aunt May’s especially her cardigans because they’re really soft and warm. He has a few of Uncle Ben’s as well.

So far nobody calls him out on it and Peter is content with that.

Anywho.

“Peter!” Peter hears Gwen’s voice call out to him. He’s currently on his way to his locker, shove things inside, grab lunch and eat with second lunch.

“Hey Gwen, how's morning classes so far?” he asks her. The girl shrugs.

“Normal. How about you?” Gwen asks, giving him a look.

“So far, so good.” He pulls out an earplug to show her and shoves it back in. “How’re things for you?”

“Oh, internship stuff, dealing with school work and balancing out tutoring times.” Gwen chirps.

“Sounds fun. I have to visit  _ them _ once every one to two weeks, it's not so bad. I get to hang out with Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner,” Peter tries to say without bouncing in enthusiasm. Gwen laughs.

“I know Pete, i was there.”

“Sorry, it's just--my two biggest idols!” Peter says with glee.

“And you got cool powers along with it.” Gwen smirks. The comment makes Peter freeze up a little. He laughs it off.

“Ha, y-yeah. Cool powers.” Gwen frowns.

“Peter? Are you alright?” he nods at her a bit too quickly.

“Just, still a little overwhelmed with it still, but i’m fine.” He smiles. “Anyways, i think you have study hall and i have lunch.” Gwen glances up at the clock.

“Oh shoot, i’m tutoring someone in the library. He’s probably waiting for me. I’ll see you later, Peter!” Gwen runs off and waves him goodbye.

Peter waves, knowing she couldn’t see him with her back facing him. He grips his backpack a little tightly. He inhales steadily and exhales moments later.

He’s pretty sure Harry will sit with his new friends during lunch, but right now he doesn’t care. Peter just wants to be alone right now. Gwen’s tiny comment had stir up the stress in him. All he needs is his two lunches, and then head outside to eat. The cafeteria set up is inside, but the doors are open on good days and students can sit outside if they want to. Peter stays inside, but sitting outside at the table by the tree sounds nice. Nobody sits there because there are bugs in the tree and mainly spiders. So it’s a win win for him now. 

He sets his food out and about to shove Aunt May’s sandwich in his mouth before someone interrupts that moment.

“Hey, there’s not any tables open and i really don’t want to pull a mean girls and sit in the bathroom. Can i sit here?” a voice had Peter look up from his sandwich. 

“Uhh, sure?” Peter says reluctantly, but then he eyes the Star Wars T-shirt he’s wearing. He watches the large boy sit, sighing in relief. “My name’s Peter.”

“Thanks dude. My name’s Ned.” he smiles. 

**.:. X .:.**

Gwen rushes inside the library and glances around. Library has a few students in there, but finding a table is no problem at all. Like it ever is. She can only think of the times in the school year that students flood in and that would be near end of year tests and midterms. For now, she's glad for the non crowdedness in the library. 

Gwen greets the librarian with a smile. He’s old, with a stache and always seem to have on a pair of headphones during class time since no kids wanders in unless the teacher had prearrange things. She rids herself of her thoughts as she chose her usual table and set her things down and preps her mind for her usual person she tutors.

The library doors open reluctantly and she glances up, spotting the buzz cut blonde boy she tutors frequently. The corner of her lip twitches as the librarian glares at him for tossing his basketball in the air. He stops and nods and makes his way to Gwen.

“Flash,” she greets the boy. “How has your classes been?” she asks. The boy nods.

“It’s been alright. I managed to get a C+ on my physics test from last week.” that brings a smile to Gwen’s face.

“That’s great! Now if we can get it up to a B and keep it there you shouldn’t have to worry about having to complete extra credit, but those are still helpful. Every point counts,” Gwen says. “Now let's go over your test.” Flash nods and pulls out his work.

It's a little past half an hour that she notices something odd with Flash. The class he has before is US history and he has no problems in that class. His gym classes isn’t until afternoon and unless he had early practice for basketball, there would be no reason for Flash to cradle the left side of his ribs.

She notices the little winces that slips through his somewhat calm demeanor as he works out the problems Gwen has shown him. Now, normally she wouldn’t ask but it's bugging her, because Flash wouldn’t be that careless to harm himself that bad. From what she can tell, breathing is a hard task for the boy.

She bites her bottom lip and finally asks him. 

“Hey, Flash?” she asks, gaining the boy’s attention. “Are you alright? You’re like, favoring your left side a little bit. I couldn’t help but notice.”

“I’m fine, i got a little sloppy at practice. It’s nothing.” he shrugs, dropping the hand that cradled his side but winces slightly at the sudden gesture.

“You sure? I mean we can stop here and head to the nurse’s office.”

“No, no i’m good,” he answers a little too quickly. Gwen wants to push further, but decides against it. She just nods and continues on writing out tips and corrections on a sheet of paper for Flash.

They continue to work a little longer before Gwen says that they should stop here for now and pack up. Flash glances up at the clock, five minutes before the bell rang for lunch B to swarm in.

“You know, if you ever need anything you can always ask me,” Gwen says as she packs her things up. “Even if you just wanted to talk.” she shrugs, trying to be nonchalant and not too pushy. Flash rolls his eyes.

He’s about to retort but stops when he notice the look on her face that shows she’s concerned. He just sighs and nods. 

“Yeah, i’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for the help,” he says before making his way out of the library. 

Gwen sighs as she watches Flash’s slight hunched over figure briskly walk out of the library. Judging from his reactions to her questions, he’s surely hiding something. Then again this is Flash, his temper is short and he gets into frequent fights. Well, he starts frequent fights. He’s always made his way to mess with Peter all the time (she’s intervened as much as she can) but lately she’s notice the lack of anger directed at Peter. Not that she minds it, its great. 

Because once upon a time they were friends.

Gwen shouldn’t worry, she has a lot to deal with now. She’ll just file this under ‘deal with later’ category in her mind and cross the bridge when the time comes.

**.:. X .:.**

On her way to lunch, Gwen spots Peter scarfing food down his throat and finds him sitting with another student. She hasn’t seen him before, but she’s heard that they’re suppose to get a few new student transfers so she assumes the boy is one of them. Judging by the jolly laughter from Peter as he starts to babble about Star Wars it’s safe to say that their small circle of friends gained a new person. She arrives a bit early to her lunch but she honestly doesn’t care.

Peter spots her and waves at her with a huge smile. She walks over and sits her things next to Peter.

“Hey Gwen, this is Ned. He’s a new transfer student from one of the old science high school that got closed down. He likes computers. Ned, this is Gwen. One of my best friends and she’s amazing at everything,” Peter introduces them.

“Hi, your schools like, way better than mine. They were supposed to have a large fund to update everything but with the additions made to this school they thought it was best to shove all of us here.” Ned says.

“An influx of transfer students, how many are there?” Gwen asks, curious.

“Not many, the ones with the highest gpa were sent here while the others were shuffled off to different branches of the science schools around,” Ned shrugs. “I don’t really know how they really worked it out. Last minute thing.”

“Yeah, right in the middle of the school year,” Gwen says. “Well, welcome to Midtown Science High.”

“Thanks. Oh, Peter. I have the Lego Star Wars: The Last Jedi First Order Star Destroyer that i got from my Grandpa. You wanna build it with me?” Ned asks. Peter drops his sandwich.

“ _ Yes. _ ”

Gwen rolls her eyes. “You dorks. By the way Pete, Ned, your lunch is over. You should probably head to your next class,” she says, causing Peter to fumble and gather his things and shove food in his mouth. Ned groans. 

“I don’t even know my way around, i have English Literature, where is that even?” he takes his schedule out, in which Peter yanks from his hand.

“Dude that’s my class. C’mon,” Peter says. “She throws markers if you’re late. Bye Gwen!” Peter and Ned waves her goodbye. 

Gwen smiles. She knows the two will definitely grow closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm late. _(:3」∠)_
> 
> This chapter did not want to write. 
> 
> Also Ned just bulldozed his way in this story.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ned asks Peter a series of questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 4k words i'm proud of myself.
> 
> Also sorry for the wait, i've been sick in and out and family problems and blah blah blah. And i went hiking for the first time with my best friend and she literally kept going "I think this is the right way." and i'm just behind her like "whAT DO YOU MEAN YOU THINK." And we did go the wrong way and had to back track a little.
> 
> But we're alive.
> 
> Enjoy!

Alright, maybe school won’t go as well as he hoped it would. Peter realizes one class that may pose as a problem for him. It’s after English literature and Ned is off to the office because they messed up his schedule. Peter now has a problem.

Gym class.

Peter swears up a storm in his head, then frantically apologizes to the disappointed imaginary Steve angel sitting on his shoulder. The Tony on his other shoulder just nods, agreeing with the swears because this situation is not so great. Because how can you just explain having abs all of a sudden? Peter before had several bruises due to his still ongoing clumsiness. He wasn’t as built now, of course he wasn’t scrawny. With his interest over spiders, he had climbed up so many trees and picked up on some parkour when he saw a group of teens, they didn’t mind showing him this and that, just enough for him to get to where he wanted--just not to high. He hates heights. Peter shook his head. That was besides the point. Peter before had a bit of muscle but him now? The muscle gain will probably catch someone’s eye and Peter really doesn’t want to attract attention. He’s pretty built and it's not something you would expect on a psychique of a fifteen year old kid. Not unless that kid has been working out everyday of his life.

He sighs in frustration.

Peter feels like he should just skip gym class for now, until he can come up with an excuse. He can probably feign sickness. He could make himself throw up but he’s positive that is a horrible idea. The Steve angel on his shoulder agrees with him.

He glances at the clock. He could just quickly change in the stalls before everyone floods in to change. He’ll just deal with changing in there for now until he can come up with a solution.

Ooh, maybe Happy will have a solution, the man used to box didn’t he?

With that set in mind, Peter quickly made his way to his locker, surprisingly early for once he opened his locker and yanked the shirt off of him and chose the long sleeve and pulled it over his head. With that out of the way, Peter’s little anxiety calmed.

A few boys shuffled in while Peter is changing into his jogging pants. The weather is cold and the coach scheduled running out in the track for today, mostly because the school needed to repair some floorboards in the gym.

Peter nearly jumps out of his skin when a hand slaps down on his shoulder. He snaps his head over to the side and sees--

“Ned? Don’t you have--” Peter asks.

“--they messed up on a few schedules and dumped me in Gym,” Ned says with displeasure. “Of all the classes they could’ve put me in, they had to choose gym. I would’ve been fine with home ec, my aunt recently had another baby and i baby sit and i'm cool with taking care of a fake baby.” Peter looks at his friend in amusement, a grin forming on his face.

“Coach Wilson isn’t too bad. He can push, but he’s encouraging,” Peter shrugs. “At least you're not suffering alone. C’mon, i’m sure they have you clothes to change into.” Ned groans and nods.

“They’re prepared to watch kids _suffer_.” Peter laughs and nudges Ned.

“C’mon, hurry and change. He hates students that are late. You’re lucky the gym is under construction, we’re just going around the track a few times.”

“Ugh, fine.”

 

* * *

  


Apparently they weren’t just walking. After a few laps, he wants the students to get with a partner and perform basic sets. Pull ups, sit ups and push ups.

“So why are you taking spanish?” Ned asks him when they were discussing their classes.

“Provides better chances to get a job,” Peter answers. “Why are you not taking robotics lab when you’re taking Computer programming and Networking?”

“It was already full so i couldn’t take it.” Ned seems a bit bummed about it. “They booted me to Music Theory since that has a lot of openings. I can’t complain though, the teacher is too nice and into the subject. I also wanted to take Computer math but that was full.”

“Apparently it's worse in college, signing up for classes. I hear they basically camp out at their computers, codes and class information ready to sign up at the strike of midnight. They say to have back up classes and hope that it won't interfere with your current classes. Its worse when the wifi goes out or the servers crash.”

“What so we have to _research_ our classes before _taking_ the classes?”

“I know! Crazy, but yea i had that happen to me. I had to take english lit because the counselor thought it’d be a breather for me. Something about a nice change of pace. I have that class with Gwen.”

“I see Gwen actually,” Ned says and points to where he sees her. “I didn’t know she took Gymnastics.”

“Yeah, she starting taking it as a hobby since she was little. Something about being active increases heart rate, which pumps more oxygen to the brain. Promotes more brain cells. I used to be in it until i broke my arm and Aunt May pulled me out,” Peter tells Ned. Aunt May definitely does not know about him running around climbing this and that for the sake of spiders (“It's for the sake of science aunt may!”).

You’d think after being bitten he’d stop being clumsy. Unfortunately the universe does not like Peter.

“Why would you even be in Gymnastics in the first place if you were really clumsy?”

“Where did you hear that from?” Peter asked, confused as to where he could’ve heard it from.

“Gwen when we were walking to class in the same direction.”

“So basically she warned you.”

“Yup.”

Peter shakes his head and ponders on what made him sign up in the first place. He can’t quite remember. “When i was a kid was really active, so i needed some type of outlet. My parents were busy so i think they stuck me in some class that i would have with a close friend, aka Gwen,” he said as he gestures over at her direction. “I started to like it after a while. Then i broke my arm and got pulled out. Gwen and I hung out a lot at my house because she felt bad. Her parents got along with mine well enough.”

“You’re making it sound like both of you were joined at the hip,” Ned comments, making Peter laugh.

“Practically. She’s the best,” Peter says, causing Ned to look back at Gwen and then Peter.

“So why haven’t you asked her out yet?” Ned bluntly asks the boy, causing him to stumble. The boy blushes and looks at Ned incredulously.

“W- _what?”_ he squeaks out.

“Oh c’mon. It’s always one of the best cliched type of romance stories where they’re best friends since almost birth and stuck to the hip. You always compliment her, she teases you. She looks out for you.”

“T-that--She’s my best _friend_! Besides, isn’t it against the friendship code to not ask out said best friend or else things won’t be the same?” Peter says nervously. Ned nudges him with his elbow.

“Dude c’mon i can totally see it! It’s like the whole Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable where they get together at the dance and everyone was totally for it!”

“Ned, this isn’t a cartoon.”

A whistle shrieks, interrupting Ned’s thought.

“Less talking, more jogging!” the coach yells out. “C’mon i want to see you sweat!” he claps his hands together, urging the students to go faster.

“Coach, it's sixty degrees and cloudy,” one student says.

“Just get to it. Several of you look too relaxed,” he snaps his fingers. “Go, go!” he says as he picks his pace up.

“C’mon Ned,” Peter says.

“Urgh, fine I’ll drop it for now,” the boy says.

 

* * *

  


“So if you don’t like Gwen, who is your second choice to ask out?” Ned asks. They are currently doing pull ups, Ned counting how many their partner can do in a minute.

“Ned _focus_.”

“I can multitask.”

“Uh, i don’t know i haven’t really thought about it.” Peter answers as he pulls himself up with ease. He’s distracted by Ned’s questions.

“So Gwen _would_ be your first choice,” Ned says in an A-ha manner.

“ _Ned_!”

“Dude, high school! You can’t just focus on school all the time. You need...well...down time.”

“Look, okay. I _may_ have thought about it at one point, but i just don’t want to lose her as a friend. I definitely don’t want to make anything awkward between us.” Peter explains as he pulls himself up and down. “And right now isn’t a good time, ya know? She has like, Oscorp internship to worry about and my Stark internship is in the process and like we’re a little busy at the moment with our lives not to mention i’m sure she doesn’t think of me that way.”

“Dude you have a stark internship?!” Ned says incredulously. Peter curses the slip of his tongue.

“Uh, yea. It’s recent--new. Recently new.”

“Dude thats so cool. Did you get to meet Tony Stark? Or the CEO? I heard she trains with the Black Widow.”

“Uhh, i was sorta sick and i only got to meet Mr. Stark. That last bit i don’t really know. They’re both probably too busy to even do that sort of thing together.”

Suddenly, Coach Wilson blows the whistle and everyone stops. Almost all of them groan and pants. One by one, he went by and ask the number. The number varies but stay within five to ten range. The slightly better students were from fifteen to twenty-five.

When it's their turn, Ned spits out a number he’s sure wasn’t right.

“Forty eight,” Ned says in realization. The sound of a record stopping could be heard as everyone’s conversation stop and the attention is on him.

“What,” Coach Wilson asks, not believing what the boy just said.

“Uh--he’s just kidding. He meant twenty eight. We were distracted and talking and lost count.” Peter interrupts.

“So you were talking _while_ doing pull ups?” the coach gives him a puzzling look.

“Um, i used to do gymnastics for a while until i had to pull out,” Peter winces. “Pun not intended.”

The coach nods, taking it as Peter having prior training. “Keep it up then, Parker. I’ll keep an eye on how you’re doing.” Peter winces again.

Damn. Not good,  but at least he can pass it off as him having prior training. He’s going to have to learn how to hold back. When the coach moves on he can feel his shirt rising up.

“What do you mean she doesn’t think of you in that way, you have _abs_ dude, _look_ at them.” at that, Peter panics, slapping Ned’s hand away and blushes as he pulls his shirt down to cover up again.

“Dude!”

“You can totally win with those.”

“I-I don’t want to win her over with my body, only my brain!”

“So you do like her!”

“Yes! Wait--no!” Peter shakes his head. No, bad thoughts! No! “Dammit Ned.” the boy just grins at him.

 

* * *

 

They were doing sit ups and Peter couldn’t stop having his giggle fit.

 _“So-so you pooped in the closet?”_ Peter giggles out.

“Look, it was too much Loco Moco and expired Spam Musubi from the seven eleven. And then suspicious Poke bowls and my family had a party and the place was big and i was hiding from a cousin and--” Ned waves, letting Peter imagine the rest. “Yeah, embarrassing but hey on the bright side i don’t get to see that side of the family. Frankly Mom was glad she got to leave early.”

 _“Oh my god.”_ Peter kept on laughing as he did his sit ups.

 

* * *

 

“Hey Gwen, is that Peter giggling over there?” one of the girls asked Gwen. The pearls of laughter could be heard.  Gwen whips her head around.

“Hm? Huh, i wonder what he’s laughing about,” Gwen says.

“I wonder how he can keep up with sit ups and laughing like a mad man like that,” the girl comments again.

Gwen’s face drops slightly. _Idiot_ he’s suppose to be keeping his stamina on the down low. Gwen looks around and spots a stray tennis ball and picks it up.

“Let’s see if baseball practice pays off,” she mutters. When nobody is looking, she winds up and throws the ball right at Peter’s direction. She bites her lip as she sees the ball drop and hit its mark.

Right on Peter’s stomach.

She smirks when the boy groans and looks at her direction. She just waves and smiles, hoping he gets the message.

Maybe, maybe not but he stops laughing when he stupidly smiles and waves back.

Oh, and Ned is there too. She hadn’t notice.

Peter is still smiling until Ned shakes his head and snaps at him.

 

* * *

  


“You know, you’re really fit for a nerd.” Ned says as he grunts. He plops back on the ground. “I did two, that’s a record. I’m good.”

“I wouldn’t say fit. I just have this obsession with spiders and i spend most of my spare time climbing things. You know, parkour. Just enough to get me to the spot i want.”

“You should totally open an instagram or twitter under the name Peter Parkour.”

“I should but i keep forgetting to do it.”

“Dude have you heard of Lucas the spider?”

“ _What?”_ Peter asks.

“I’ll show you later.”

“You know he said to stop at twenty, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re at like, forty two.”

“ _Dammit.”_

 

* * *

  


“See ya Pete, i gotta go and find my next class,” Ned says as he leaves Peter behind in the locker room.

Peter waves at him as he left. The coach let Ned go early since he’s new.

Peter’s next class is nearby so he had no problem in rushing to class next. He’s a little glad that the ‘run’ didn’t even bother him. While other students did start to sweat (he guesses the coach knew what he was saying) he didn’t come close. So while the other boys took a quick rinse he stays back and changes quickly while he has the bit of alone time before the others came back.

Peter tugs his normal clothes back on and tosses the gym clothes back into his locker. He then takes his phone out and decides to text Happy. Scrolling through his phone, he sits on the bench and hunches over.

**Peter:**

**Happy? Are you there?**

 

**Happy: **

**Kid, shouldn’t you be in class?**

 

**Peter:**

**It’s between classes so i have time. Just a problem i have.**

 

**Happy:**

**Shoot.**

 

**Peter:**

**So i’m regular fifteen year old thats a science nerd and does a little parkour for the sake of science but nowhere near as ripped as i should ever be would maybe raise concern**

**i really don’t want the attention at all**

**Cause aside from the little bits of climbing this and that in my spare time i don’t vigorously workout as if Captain America was my personal trainer.**

**Actually ignore that last part he kind of is.**

**But you know what i mean.**

**And it’s not like i can just run and try and dodge everyone and change before they come or in the stalls cause they’ll laugh or somethin**

**And it’s gonna be weird if i wear a long sleeve in the middle of hot weather next year so idk what to do**

**And i remember you used to box soo i figured maybe you have some idea**

 

**Happy:**

**Okay, one try not to spam so much. Like type in one - two bubbles if possible. Two, how ripped did that bite make you?**

 

Peter quickly snaps a photo of himself with his shirt raised up in the mirror close by and sits back on the bench. He sends the photo to Happy. Had he called the man, he would’ve heard swearing from the man.

 

**Happy:**

**Ripped. Alright then, head into an athletic store and grab a few under armour. You won’t have to take them off when you have gym. There are kinds to keep you cool, or try thermal since the weather is getting colder.**

 

Peter smacks his forehead. Upon him freaking out on the matter he completely forgot about that obvious solution.

 

**Peter:**

**Thanks Happy!! :)**

 

**Happy: **

**No problem, get to class kid.**

 

Peter fumbles with the phone, setting it to silent mode and shoving it in his bag. Entirely too preoccupied with texting Happy he didn’t notice the other boys come back. Which, isn’t a problem at all since he already change out of his gym clothes.

Perhaps Peter, had he not been too focused on trying to remember the closest athletic shop after school so he can stop by and see if he can get something (though he would need to check the price first and then either beg his aunt and uncle for one or find a job and convince his aunt and uncle to let him get a job. Either way he would still need to go to them), he would’ve notice the others starting to spray a profuse amount of body spray.

Namely Axe.

The school had put a ban on those and honestly Peter didn’t like the smell but it never bothered him at all.

But holy hell, one minute he’s fine, the next his senses are being attacked. His nose suddenly sting every time he inhales and a headache from hell descends upon him. Or is it a migraine? He can’t think right now. Neither probably, someone is trying to drive an ice pick or some sharp object into his nose. Or performing lobotomy because that's what it honestly feels like. He feels incredibly light headed and the oxygen from his lungs is disappearing.

He can’t breathe.

He feels something wet run down his nose and he couldn’t focus enough to know its blood.

The blood rushing in his head makes his ears pound, so he couldn’t hear some students rushing out to grab the coach while someones holding his head and a towel to his nose.

When did he get on the ground?

“ **_Pe_ ** _t e_ **_r_ ** _?!”_ he could hear someone shout. It sounds like Harry, because his voice sounds the same that one time Peter fell off tree. Thankfully he didn’t break anything that time.

There’s too much noise and he’s clutching his ears because the sudden influx of noise overwhelms him. He didn’t realize he’s curled up tightly into a ball sobbing because everything is too much.

“ _G_ ** _e_** **_t  o_** _u_ ** _t_** _!”_ he dully hears. An authoritative voice. Coach? “-- _side-----office----rse?.”_

“ _\---f a m i l y--.”_

And Peter passes out.

 

**.:. X .:.**

 

Ben gets the call later. He’s at work discussing some repairs on the bridge. He’s too old to climb up like how he would do when he’s younger, but the years have not been to kind to him. So now he just plans and leads while the people capable of repairing and building do the strenuous work. He’s in the middle of a conversation when his cell phone rings. He sends an apologetic look to his co-worker before excusing himself.

“This is Ben,” he answers.

“ _Hello, Mr. Parker This is Ruth, calling from Midtown Science High to let you know that your nephew Peter has had an incident at school and had been sent to the hospital due to a seizure.”_

Ben’s stomach drops.

Peter? A seizure?

“Is he--”

“Some boys were spraying that body spray Axe in the locker rooms. A few class rooms had to be cleared out that were near the gym due to how strong it was. A few were light headed, but Peter was the only one to severely be affected by it,” her voice shifts to a softer tone. “His friend Harry is with him. The ambulance is on it’s way to Bellevue Hospital Center nearby.”

“Thank you--i’m on my way,” Ben quickly hangs up and then contemplates on if he should call his wife. He’s closer to Peter and shes at their home in Queens. An hour away. He’ll just call to let her know. He taps his phone and calls.

“ _...”_

_“...”_

_“...”_

_“Ben? Dear?”_ May’s voice answers sweetly.

“May, now don’t panic. Peter’s had a seizure during school and they’re transporting him to a hospital. I’m on my way to him right now. We’ll come back home as soon as we can, alright?”

_“What!? Ben, you can’t expect for me to just sit here and not panic! Peter was fine this morning!”_

“I know, but you’re far away and i don’t want you--”

_“Too bad, Ben. I’m taking a cab there. Now you either tell me which hospital it is or i’ll call the school myself.”_

Ben sighs. He should’ve known better.

_“Bellevue Hospital Center, i’ll meet you there. Please be careful.”_

“I will honey,” and shortly after she hangs up.

This leaves Ben cramming his phone in his pocket before looking up to the people he had been talking to. He apologizes, though they heard and understood what happened and ushers him to go talk to the boss.

The boss respects Ben so he let the man off for the rest of the day and tomorrow  to tend to Peter.

 

**.:. X .:.**

 

“Tash,” Clint’s voice interrupts Natasha from her stretching.

Yes, she holds a tiny resentment to how flexible Peter is than her. She releases herself from her hold stands up, grabbing a nearby towel and wiping the sweat off her forehead. She nods at him.

“What happened? It’s only been a day.” she asks, not liking the tone of voice coming from Clint. She takes the personal stark pad from the man’s hands and glances at the screen, immediately tapping the video already up.

The security footage plays, and it’s a shot of the parker’s kitchen, where Aunt May can be seen standing by the laundry room. She had been loading things in mid-way until a phone call from their house phone rings out. She walks over and grabs it.

 _“Ben? Dear?”_ May’s voice answers sweetly.

 _“...”_ Damn, they can’t hear the other end.

“No time to tap their phones?” she asks.

“I thought that was a bit excessive,” Clint admits. He waves at the pad and her attention refocuses.

_“What!? Ben, you can’t expect for me to just sit here and not panic! Peter was fine this morning!”_

_“...”_

_“Too bad, Ben. I’m taking a cab there. Now you either tell me which hospital it is or i’ll call the school myself.”_

_“...”_

_“I will honey,”_ and shortly after she hangs up. She makes another call. She paces back and forth in the kitchen. “ _Peter, oh Peter please be alright--Yes! I need a cab to Bellevue Hospital Center. My boy’s there.”_ she says as she runs out the kitchen. The camera switches angles and May is now seen walking up the stairs, presumably to get ready.

Natasha closes the camera footage.

“Jarvis, can you see if there is any social media posts via Midtown Science High about Peter?” she asks. For the time now, Peter should still be in school and knowing teenagers there should be something about it. She hopes, either way she’s making her way to the hospital now.

 _“Of course Ms. Romanov,”_ Jarvis announces. A few seconds pass and he finally speaks. _“There is several videos of the same location--”_

“Play the video,” she says. The video plays and it's utterly heart wrenching. She can hear Peter sobbing in the background. The video is shaky, other shouts of “what the fuck” and “holy shit” are heard, along with one lone “You’re going to be in so much trouble dude.”

“Kid looks like he’s seizing,” Clint says.

“He was alright when he left--what the hell could’ve happened?” she asks. “I’m taking the bike--c’mon,” she says, tossing the pad back to Clint and both agents made their way to the garage.

_“Shall i inform Mr. Stark and put in a transfer for Peter to Sir’s care?”_

“You’re going to need to if that's the only way to stop the tests,” Clint comments.

“Go ahead, also if that hospital runs any blood tests on Peter, think you can tweak it to make his blood seem normal?”

_“I would need to be connected to the mainframe of the hospital to do so. Using the starkpad would be the best option._

“Great, let’s go,” she says before the elevator closes in on them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBH--that Axe shit will surely fuck Peter up and those with heightened senses. 
> 
> Like it actually shut down a school and sent like eight students to the hospital.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So i did a bunch of research for this, made notes to have on hand for later. 
> 
> And by doing this story and subjecting myself to research a bunch of spider facts and pictures, i'm slowly being more open to them. 
> 
> I tried finding more information on how they diagnose and hospital procedures especially for minors. If anything is a bit off, feel free to comment on that. If i miss anything they should've done then tell me and i'll make some minor changes.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy the chapter ya'll.

 

**.:. X .:.**

 

Ah,  _christ_. Bruce curses as he reads through information on the list of spiders that Jarvis provided. Pairing with the security footage during Peter's spars, the very latest one he spots something odd. Right before Bucky's boot winds him, Peter's eyes scrunch together and he completely froze.

He seem to do fine before and no injury prior to that or else the avengers would have stop to check on Peter.

So him freezing had to be related to something else. Overload perhaps? Peter is diagnosed with ADHD. It's a possible chance, and after the bite enhances  _everything, including senses._

Spiders already have heightened senses, but poor eyesight. A genetically modified radioactive spider? Yeah, it's a lot to handle.

Bruce hadn't gotten the chance to talk perform any tests because one he's not a doctor no matter how many times hes said that, and two the others insist they take the time to train Peter first and tests later. He had agreed because he honestly didn't think anything bad would happen. Peter is a good kid.

He doesn't know if Peter knows of his senses or he assumes its not a big deal, which it is.

Bruce rushes out of the lab, nearly knocking Tony over.

"Whoa there Brucey, your watch is beeping," Tony points out. His heart rate is up. He looks at his friend in concern. Bruce is usually a really chill guy despite the whole raging green monster problem.

Bruce breathes in and out slowly.

"Tony you need to get Peter to come here after school. There's something i didn't look over properly when i checked over him," Bruce explains. "Actually now is preferrable. It  _is_ a medical emergency."

"And i assume it can't wait til the weekend or the next time he comes over?" Tony eyes Bruce warily. "What did you find?"

"Spiders have bad sight. Even if they have eight eyes, they're nearsighted. To make up for that, their senses are heightened. Smell, touch, sound," he lists off "But that's for a normal spider. With a genetically enhanced radioactive spider everything including sight is heightened by a hundred. When things become too much and he's processing too much he can essentially overload. Sensory Overload is what its called."

"And we just sent the kid back to a high school where that's hell for the kid-god its been barely a day."

" _About that sir, Ms. Romanov and Mr. Barton left moments ago concerning an incident involving young Mr. Parker at high school. The staff had already contacted his aunt and uncle and on their way to the hospital."_

" _What?"_  Tony asks incredulously. What on earth happened to the kid? "Nat and Barton left to check on him?"

" _Making sure Young Mr. Parker's newfound species status remains 'human.' Shall i pull up the footage taken by the students, sir?"_

"Put em up, buddy."

Both men watch the footage shot by some guys in the locker room. Bruce is studying it as Tony have Jarvis search through tweets and snap chats and such to determine what exactly went wrong.

"Damn it. Sensory Overload," Bruce curses, angry with himself for letting Peter go without fully checking him. He'll make sure nobody will interrupt next time. "That body spray the kids sprayed is so toxic one school had to shut down and sent about eight students to the ER." He can only imagine how Peter felt during that moment. "The smell was too much and it sent his body into shock and caused a seizure, bloody nose and triggered an asthma attack."

"So what you're saying is that if someone actually uses bug spray on him, it'll be fatal?" Tony asks. Mildly concerned about the pesticide he used to use before opting on just shocking the bugs. He'll have to make sure nobody has a can at all in the tower. Bruce nods.

" _Ms. Romanov suggests on transferring young Mr. Parker into Sir's healthcare and i quite agree with the notion. It would lessen the possibility of the hospital finding out about young Mr. Parker."_  Tony nods.

"Do it and stat. I really hope he mention something about an internship to his aunt and uncle. If not it should be fine, all employees hired by me are covered anyways. In the meantime i called my favorite loveable doctor if she can come in to see Peter and  _yes_ , it is Helen."

"She's not mad for-you know," Bruce asks. Tony's shoulders droop. Bruce believes the man is pouting.

"I gave her enough apology funds to fix it. She finally forgave me. If anything her crush on Thor is over when she found out he fried the thing with his lightning." Tony grins at the memory. Thor had spotted her one day and greeted her, but she dropped her smile, spun around and left without a word. He had been beyond confused until Natasha explained to him why. "She has a soft spot for kiddos, which is why she's on her way here. Should be here in about a day."

"Thank god for that, it's always best to have more than one person looking over someone. I may have the title doctor but i can only do so much unlike Helen, who actually has a M.D.," Bruce says. He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. He can feel a tension headache coming. Tony looks at the man with sympathy.

"You want some tea?" he asks. He hears a hum.

"...Yeah. Tea sounds great right now," Bruce says.

 

**.:. X .:.**

 

Infiltrating is a cakewalk for Natasha, especially in a civilian type setting. Though she doesn't have a photostatic veil on her to make things smoother, slipping in and out is fine. She's done more complicated infiltration missions in her life that this is nothing.

Slipping in as a nurse from break, stethoscope around her neck that she found in the locker room lying on the bench (careless she adds but helpful for her), snatches a pair of somewhat clean looking scrubs from the hamper set in the room, finds a box of face masks and cap that she tucks her hair in and she walks out with an air of confidence.

_Vrrrm_

She checks her phone and reads a text from Clint, who by this time is at the small cafe down in the cafeteria that's open to the public. Knowing the man, he chose to sit near the corner where he has the most privacy and where he can hack and find the employee map of the hospital thanks to the help of Jarvis from his starkpad. She has a mini starkpad on her and judging from the hospital it seems like they're up to date on their technology.

**Clint** **: Hospital food is shit, but the coffee is great. Bless.**

She rolls her eyes and goes off to find the nearest nurses station quickly, not wanting to waste anymore time.

Natasha follows the arrows until she finds the nurses station. She spots two other nurses there sitting and doing paperwork. Three computer unoccupied while two were being used. She chooses the furthest one and wiggles the mouse, waking the computer up from its sleep. Her eyes quickly scan and spots the sync device option on the bottom left of the desktop and quickly presses it, reaching for her the mini starkpad and tapping on the sync icon so Jarvis can hack into it's mainframe.

"- _such a dick,"_  Natasha hears. She doesn't move her head, but lets her eyes glance over to where the voice came from. A blonde, brown roots coming in thats tied up in a neat ponytail. Cap still worn but face mask hanging off by the ear.

One of the nurses doing paperwork perks up at the sound of gossip.

"Let me guess, he didn't show up?" she snorts when the blonde shakes her head.

"We nearly had to amputate before another doctor finally came in on such short notice and figured what's wrong with the patient. She's only eight and that arrogant  _prick_  decides that her 'case' wouldn't boost his rep."

"What did he say?"

" _No, too easy. She'll be fine if you have a reputable doctor on your staff. I need a challenge,"_  the blonde repeats. She growls under her breath. "I don't know why Christine likes him."

Another nurse shrugs. "Good dick?

Another just gestures her hand in a so-so manner. "Meh, he's alright. The arrogance is such a turn off though."

"Maybe if you plug your ears it would be a better experience."

"His face makes me want to punch him several times too."

"If the lights are dark enough you wouldn't have to worry."

"When did we start talking about his dick?"

" _Anyways_ , don't worry. Karma will bound to bite his ass one day. Just you wait."

"I hope so, that man needs to be knocked down a peg or two," the blonde huffs and marches on out.

_Sync successful._

A message pops up.

* * *

 

**J: Sir has been informed. I will take care of things from here. Anything pertaining to the name of Peter Parker will be dealt with. Might i suggest you leave or visit Mr. Parker in room five twenty eight in the Intensive Care Unit while in uniform?**

* * *

 

Natasha unsyncs and slips the pad in her pocket before walking away. She really wants to see how Peter is doing and knowing policies it's likely that they won't allow Harry to be in the same room, but the boy is rich and with enough money to the right person, people can be persuaded.

She heads into the nearest elevator and heads up to Peter's floor, meeting up with Clint who most likely took the stair entrance. He walks in sync with her and held a worried look on his face. She spots the room and ushers Clint in and closes the door. She locks the door behind her.

" _Security footage is looped,"_  Jarvis announces from their comm link. She pulls her mask off and Clint takes a cap off.

Peter was hooked up to a heart monitor and an oxygen mask on his mouth. So far he has no sign of waking up.

"I don't see any signs of them taking blood. Probably waiting for his Aunt and Uncle to ask for consent on taking his blood since he's a minor," Clint says as he observes Peter. Natasha on the other hand take the time to look over the paperwork that was left on the counter.

Flipping through, they mark him down for a first time seizure and a severe asthma attack due to foreign substance that stopped his lungs from working when the ambulance was on route to the hospital. He had hit his head pretty hard when he fainted back in the locker room.

"I'm surprised the bell ringing didn't shock him," she mumbles. She knows of Peter's enhanced hearing.

"Kid swiped something from Bruce's lab," Clint says. He had been hiding in the vents when that happened and the kid didn't notice him up there.

" _I've already put in the transfer request through their system, Ms. Romanov."_

"Thank you so much Jarvis," Natasha says sweetly.

"What are we going to do about Osborne's kid? Overheard him arguing with a nurse about letting him transfer Peter to his personal doctors," Clint says. That would be a bad idea. He knows the boy has good intentions but having Peter left in Norman's care? Nope. Not when the man is under Fury's list of highly intelligent and possibly highly dangerous innovative, influential people. Yes, Tony is definitely on that list still. Bruce is also on that list along with a few others.

"If he goes crying to his dad, then it would be a problem if he sweet talks and convinces Ben and May," Natasha says.

" _The situation is in our favor since the man is currently overseas on a last minute trip,"_  Jarvis says.

"Thank god for that," Clint mutters. "Still have the kid though, if he manages to convince them."

"And there's the press too. If they see an ambulance being sent to the tower the press is definitely going to be all over it," Natasha says as she set the clipboard down.

"We can figure that out when we get closer to the tower," Clint says.

"Doesn't Stark have a hidden tunnel that connects to his workshop?" Natasha asks.

"Doesn't every billionaire?" to which the Russian spy agrees with a nod.

 

**.:. X .:.**

 

Harry is currently in the waiting room, staring at the entrance for Peter's Aunt and Uncle to come through.

The staff had not allow him to go with Peter since he isn't family and the fact that he's in ICU. Apparently he's condition is so bad that his lungs had stop working momentarily. Being extremely cautious and throw in the fact that he's a minor they're making sure Peter is in good care.

He's nursing some coffee in his hand, its watery and really bad. He would buy something from that small cafe but he doesn't want to remove himself from where he is. Harry slouches in his seat, his mind constantly replaying the moment he walked in the locker room and saw Peter's head hit the ground hard. Him seizing afterwards had spooked him.

Guiltily he  _had_ ignore Pete and Gwen and hung with the older crowd, but he can have more than two friend. And he's sure they would understand. That and Gwen will be busy in the future with her internship at Oscorps. He also spotted Peter with one of the new kids.

So surely they understand right?

Harry downs the rest of his coffee and chucks it into the trash bin across the room.

He had try and fail to convince anyone to let him transfer Peter to his personal family doctors, and if his dad were here it would happen in no time, but unfortunately he's away on a sudden business trip. His dad likes Peter so he knows it wouldn't be a problem at all.

The person that done it was one of the guys he hung out with recently, saying they were just horsing around. They had done it before and nothing happened then, but Harry knows when it comes to someone's health, something bad can develop later. And the fact that Peter always gotten himself hurt a lot, but never really sick. Not this sick. It's not dramatic like the other guys had complain about when they saw what happened. He's heard others say it hadn't been a big deal.  _Pete's lungs stopped working._

That's scary.

That's a big deal.

At least for Harry it is.

Holding his friend while he had been seizing was scary, until the coach peeled Harry off Peter and laid him down on his side. Harry had ignore all the comments and teachers that try to stop him from going on the ambulance. He manage to convince them in the end though.

For now he has to be patient and not push it with the staff here or else he'll get kicked out.

If only people could be bought, this would make the situation a whole lot better.

He's about to get up and leave for the bathroom until a familiar voice fills his ears.

" _Hi, my boy was rushed here from Midtown Science high-I'm his uncle."_

" _-Are you his current guardian?"_

" _Yes, yes can i see him now?"_

" _Of course. Your nephew is on the fifth floor in ICU."_

" _Thank you."_  At that point Harry dashes out and spots Ben.

"Mr. Parker!" he calls out. The man looks over to him.

"Harry! What on earth happened-He'll come along too," he quickly waves Harry over, who follows behind him.

_Finally._

 

**.:. X .:.**

 

Due to the traffic on Ben's side of the city, and the lesser on May's side they happen to meet up at the hospital at nearly the same time.

Paying the driver, May quickly dashes out the cab and makes her way to the front receptionist, who instructs her to the fifth floor towards room five twenty-eight.

Anxiously waiting in the elevator that took about thirty years to get up to the fifth floor, she takes the time to try and breathe calmly. When the doors open up, she steps out and frantically looks around, finding her way around the halls and following the arrows until she spots the nurses station.

"Room five twenty eight?" she asks. The nurse smiles and points her the way.

Finally finding the damn room, she goes in and sees Ben and Harry. Ben sitting in a chair that was push next to Peter's bed and Harry hovering over Peter.

"Ben," she says. Her husband turns around and ushers her over.

Looking at Peter all hooked up to the machines broke her heart. He's too still and quiet.

"Hi Mrs. Parker-"

"What have i told you-It's Aunt May," She hushes him with a pat on the shoulder.

"That's what i  _told_ him," Ben says.

"Oh Harry, what on earth happened?" she asks, not taking her eyes off Peter.

"From what i've been hearing someone sprayed Axe in the locker room when that stuff was banned. That's what triggered Pete," he answers.

"Oh that terrible thing? Peter never liked anything that smelled so strong. Nothing's ever happened before…" May trails off, worry filling her. When she gets home she's going to throw out any strong aerosol cans she has in the house.

Replace everything with gentle and sensitive smells.

Oh god what about the shampoo she put in his bathroom?

That too.

"Dear, why don't you sit down for a moment. The nurse said the doctor will be here in a moment," Ben says as he gets up and leads his wife to the chair.

"He's not going to have more in the future is he?" she bites her lip.

"Aunt May, Uncle Ben i would love to have Peter transferred over to my own doctors. My dad likes Peter so i know he won't mind at all."

"Ah, no can do there," a voice surprises them. They all turn around and see a man closing the door behind him. "Dr. Ashcraft, you must be Peter's parents."

"He's our nephew," May tells him. The man nods.

"We had initially plan bloodwork and run some tests on Peter once he wakes, but he's being prepared to transfer to your new healthcare provider. You have a very smart young boy."

"New healthcare provider-what do you mean by that?" Ben scrunches his face in confusion, along with Harry and May.

"Well, our computers say he's being transferred to Tony Stark's personal healthcare provider. For a boy that young i assume it's because of an internship he received. Working for Stark inc has a lot of perks, including the interns. Uh, i take it you have no idea?" the doctor inquires.

They all shook their heads.

"I'm sure he wanted it to be a surprise. Now, Peter's lungs are still weak so he'll be left on the ventilator. I've been hearing he hit his head but i see no wounds and the x-ray we took to see if he had any injury to his skull but it came out clean. There's a high chance he has a concussion. Symptoms may include headache, confusion, lack of coordination, memory loss, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, ringing in the ears, sleepiness, and excessive fatigue. With enough rest that should go away in about a week."

"And his seizure? Is there a chance he'll have more?" May asks.

"If he's near things that triggered him the first time then yes. I can't really tell you any more without tests and bloodworks, but i'm positive Peter is in perfect care with Mr. Stark."

Someone knocks on the door before opening. It was a nurse, along with a woman with short red hair, a white shirt tucked into black slacks and a white jacket on.

"Dr. Ashcraft, the van is ready for transfer. They also sent someone over," the other woman politely nods.

"I'm one of Mr. Starks assistants, Natalie Rushman. Its very nice to meet Peter's Aunt and Uncle." she says as she approaches them and offers her hand to them. Both Ben and May shook her hand. "When he received word on what had happened he wanted to make sure Peter has the best care he can provide," the lady says with concern. "We can discuss things further when we get to Mr. Starks tower."

Both Ben and May are speechless. They glance at Peter before making their decision.

"You'll help Peter?" May asks. Natalie nods.

"Mr. Stark already has a doctor flying as we speak." After hearing that, May nods.

"We'll go through the paperwork quickly then while they get him all ready and into the van." a nurse says.

"I'll take care of that," Ben says, going with the nurse. After the two leaves, along with the doctor, May gives her attention to Stark's assistant.

"Thank you so much," she tells her. The woman smiles.

"It's not a problem. We'll make sure Peter has the best health care we can provide for him and your family," she says.

Harry, who had been quiet during the interaction, finally speaks up.

"When did Peter get his internship?" Harry asks. "Usually when a minor receives one their parents or guardians go through paperwork. Both Aunt May and Uncle Ben were surprised about all of this." The assistant looks at him.

"Over the course of the weekend when Peter had stayed at Mr. Stark's tower, Boss had gotten taken a liking with Peter. When he discovered about Peter already being on a potential receivers list for his internship he decided to grant it to Peter. It was one of the things he wanted to go over with Mr. and Mrs. Parker," Natalie finishes.

Harry squints at that.

"Then how did the tra-" Harry tried probing more but May cuts him off.

"Oh, Harry. I think it's quite alright." She pats him on his arm. "If this is going to get Peter better quicker then i don't mind them cutting corners." Harry drops it.

"Yeah, for Peter."

 

**.:. X .:.**

 

Using the van the hospital provides for them, they load Peter safely onto the back of the van.

Natasha has one problem. The secret entrance is secret for a reason, and only the Avengers, Pepper, and Rhodey knows. She's very reluctant to let the driver know about it and fully consider on just knocking out the driver briefly so she can drive.

No matter how many times they claim they won't let anyone know, not even a week later the secret is out.

Tony could buy the person to being quiet, but she knows he would feel better on not letting anyone find out if possible.

If only Clint could fake into being the driver but the Parkers already knew his face. So he opts for driving the cycle in front while the ambulance is behind him. Also another problem.

At some point, someone will definitely spot the van heading towards the tower.

"I'll be riding the front to let all of you have some private time with Peter during the ride," she tells them. As they board the back, she makes her way to the driver side, slipping into her seductive side to sweet talk into driving the van.

Opening the driver's side door and spotting the driver, her smile drops completely before promptly slamming it and making her way around the van and hopping into the passenger's side. Quietly she buckles in and sighs.

"You honestly thought i had no idea?"

"Just not so soon." Natasha admits. "I assume this part of the van is sound proofed," he nods.

"Come on, i'm Fury's right hand man for a reason. And before you ask, yes he knows. He's not going to do anything at all and letting me handle everything. And i quote 'he's a damn kid. I have better things to worry about'. If he weren't a minor, it'd be a different story," Coulson says.

"Fury won't keep tabs on him?" she asks.

"Not technically, he is with sending me in but nothing official in the system. No file being kept whatsoever. Fury isn't as heartless as people make him to be," he says. "You're lucky i came because the van we're in is issued by shield. So we can go incognito as soon as we pass under the bridge up ahead and before i forget-" he taps a button. "Barton."

" _I totally won the bet, Nat,"_ Clint says with glee.

"Oh shut up." She rolls her eyes.

" _Anyways, what about Osbourne's kid?"_  Clint mentions.

"Chances are, he won't stay very long. If people see Harry coming by on for a non school related reason then people will talk. Harry know not to risk that kind of speculation for his father. Now tell me, have any of you come up with a reason as to how to explain things to Peter's Aunt and Uncle?" Coulson questions.

"I assume Tony has that part covered with Bruce and Helen. Sensory overload is found associated with those diagnosed with ADHD. Since there had been many cases on those being sent to the ER from inhaling that body spray it shouldn't be hard to convince them. That and Peter's new problem with his senses overloading won't raise red flags about his mutation," Natasha says.

"Or you know," Coulson shrugs "you can just convince Peter to tell them." Phil taps a button on the dashboard as soon as they go under the bridge. The van turns from red and white to just plain white and the lights on top are hidden under a fake image of random equipment. "Keeping secrets is fine but the kid will eventually reach a point where he'll need them. That fear of them rejecting him that he holds over his head will definitely cause problems for him in the future."

" _We'll mention it but we won't force him."_  Phil nods at this.

"Also, in a couple of weeks both you and Barton have a mission. I suggest both of you on brushing up your Mongolian."

" _Ugh, i hope it's not the desert."_  Phil just smiles, confirming Clint's worry. " _I'll just pretend to be completely deaf. Make Nat do all the talking."_

"And i'm going to let that death worm eat you the first chance it gets," Natasha tells Clint.

" _Ha, if only it were real."_

The van turn quiet.

" _It's not, is it?"_

Nothing.

" _Guys?"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a little bonus (if you would really call it that) for those really patient and nice about me not posting a chapter for a while. It's just a little backstory on what went on in my AU of Winter Soldier and Ultron.
> 
> To be clearer:
> 
> After CATWS, at the end of the movie Steve manages to recover and save Bucky. To the public it was known as a mission Captain America took to deal with a large drug cartel from foreign travelers. Government stuff. Only thing what i can come up with to explain the shit that happened that people witnessed and that Shield covered up.
> 
> In the movie before the three helicarriers were launched, a video of Tony pops up, who waves and says that some dumbass actually copy and pasted his blueprints to his helicarriers and so what they didn't know is that that action informed Tony because he hid so many bugs and viruses on it that now he can take over and whoa la, here he is. He tells Pierce to expect a bitch of a lawsuit for copyright claims.
> 
> And as he was speaking, a bunch of army folks are swarming in because this very much looks like some kind of threat with some high class hostages. And a bunch of people come in. This saves Natasha from leaking info to the public then and Shield can still legally operate and kept hidden a secret. Fury is reinstated as director.
> 
> Cap, Wilson and the others manage to take down the rest of the HYDRA agents on scene. This draws out Bucky and they manage to subdue him in the end.
> 
> During Bucky's 'capture', bits of his memories come back, but enough for the WS to be put to sleep. With no Hydra agents to trigger the WS and with Steve getting through to him, Bucky was saved.
> 
> The events in Ultron still happens but Bucky manages to convince Wanda and Pietro before she mind fucks them and she finds out about Hydra's involvement in their war at their home. This saves Wanda from eventually Hexing Bruce that caused him to go on a rampage and forcing Tony to battle his friend. Cause i think that was the turning point after he regains control and ultimately him leaving in the end after all was finished.
> 
> With Wanda and Pietro leaving earlier by Bucky's insistence, Wanda still having problems with Tony but still has him sees his worse fear and she still manages to see in Ultron's mind the destruction he wanted to cause.
> 
> She is still antsy during the scene of Vision's birth, but ya know. Thor just BOOM comes in and zaps the cradle. His explanation of his vision from the water of sight i believe and saying that Tony was right, they need Vision to defeat Ultron.
> 
> During the final fight with Ultron's bots, since Tony didn't bring the big boy to duke it out with Hulk, he uses it during the fight on Novi Grad and this saves a lot of manpower to destroy the bot.
> 
> Wanda kills off Ultron's last body when Pietro was gravely hurt (his heart did stop but Bucky saves him in time by chucking a car at Ultron before he could shoot Clint) and the ending goes on like so.
> 
> I mean this isn't too fantastic, just enough backstory as to how Shield still operates and kept hidden and Bucky saved and his involvement in Ultron saves Pietro and Bruce.
> 
> BONUS POINTS FOR FINDING THE SMALL CAMEO.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which old ladies make Bucky run

 

Hours have pass by, Harry had gone home and Tony being courteous and letting the Parkers stay until Peter is up again. Bruce is making sure Peter is all well and hooked up perfectly fine to the machines and prepping for Helen to come.

Tony on the other hand had a meeting he wants to miss, but he did promise Pepper he would try harder to attend meetings. Steve and Bucky had been on the helicarrier discussing some things on Hydra with Fury while Nat and Clint are somewhere in the tower. Nobody but Jarvis is quite sure where they are. If not in the gym training or their quarters then its a ballpark to guess where they are and find them.

Ben and May are currently on the sofa of the living are that connects to the labs where Peter is at, again.

“I just realize I left the truck back at the hospital,” Ben says, only realizing a few hours after they made it to the tower. Speaking out loud all of a sudden jerks May from her stupor. Ben, sensing that his wife is exhausted from stress, places a hand on the back of her head and rubs her temple. “Sorry if I woke you up.” May shakes her head.

“No, no you didn’t. I was just...thinking,” she says as she fingers her necklace.

“Of Peter?” he says, looking at her. She looks at him and nods tentatively.

“I’m trying to see if there was anything we missed as he was growing...developing...you know? I mean when we took Peter to a child psychologist for his ADHD, do you think maybe we missed something? I mean w-we took him to only two and Peter always has trouble getting along with kids and likes being by himself and he’s always going off climbing things and talking about bugs and spiders mainly. He was so attached to us as a kid and gets nervous when we leave him at the daycare or at a friends that he doesn’t eat--”

“May--sweety calm down,” Ben frowns.

“--Is it our fault? Is it mine? Maybe if I hadn’t of work so much or quit sooner to take care of Peter that I could pick up on some things that he reacts to. If I had just paid more attention--”

“--Honey--”

“--I would’ve switched to more sensitive and gentle detergent and shampoo or made sure to spend enough time with him and didn’t leave him at someone’s all the time the first several months. I would’ve spent time picking up on cues from Peter and maybe he wouldn’t be lying in a bed relying on a ventilator to help him breathe. His nose always twitches when I spray the air freshener around the house and clean with bleach and he sits outside on the roof outside his window. And he thinks I couldn’t tell he’s been snatching my cardigans. The really soft kind--”

“May, May, May--listen to me.” Ben grabs her attention. He sighs. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we didn’t spend enough time or brushed it off as Peter being a little odd--or just Peter, but we can’t change what's already done, alright? Peter’s grown into a wonderful boy, and he’s still growing. We’re still learning.” He wraps his arm around May. “Peter’s still here, he’s not going anywhere. He’s got the help he needs. And when he’s finally up and at it again, we can sit down and talk and make some changes around the house. Everything will be fine.” May sighs and relaxes into Ben.

“I just feel like I could’ve done something.”

“We all do, honey.”

“I’m overreacting aren’t I? It’s only been several hours but that feels like forever.”

“No, you’re reacting as how any parent would. Worried and concerned.”

“I was thinking on taking up a shift at a hospital that a friend of mine can get me recommended to, but now i’m not too sure on leaving Peter by himself...” May mumbles.

“Oh stop that. Peter will get better, i know it. If he’s inherited something from his father, it's his stubbornness. Lord knows it's in the Parker gene,” Ben says, causing May to chuckle. The woman then turns quiet again.

“Do you think we failed Peter…?” She asks quietly, as if she’s afraid for the answer. Ben brings his hand under her chin and turns her face towards his.

“I think we did alright. Nobody’s perfect, Peter knows we love and care for him even if we weren’t there all the time. We did alright with how sudden things changed for us. And you know what? We’ll do better.”

May smiles and kisses her husband.

Then, the woman gets up and paces a little.

“ _Oh_ , I need to do something and not sit and wait or I’ll just start thinking again, oh if we were home I would just stress cook. And bake, I mean everyone love cookies.”

“I’m sure they have something here in this gigantic tower,” Ben says as he waves his hand, gesturing to how huge one of the living area they were currently sitting in is.

**_“If you would like, Mrs. Parker, I can lead you to the floor’s kitchen area and show you where the supplies are. I’m positive nobody will mind at all,”_ ** Jarvis says, surprising the two.

Ben looks around in surprise before looking at May, who looked up. “Did the ceiling just talk?” Ben asks.

**_“I apologize. Let me introduce myself, I am J.A.R.V.I.S--JUST A RATHER VERY INTELLIGENT SYSTEM. I am Sir’s artificially intelligent computer system.”_ **

“Like an electronic butler?” Ben asks as he stares up.

**_“In a way.”_ **

Ben shrugs and glances at May, who doesn’t seem so sure.

“I wouldn't want to impose.”

**_“I’m one hundred percent positive that you will not impose at all. I can lead you to it if you would like.”_ **

May thinks over it and nods. Why the hell not.

“If you insist. It's the least I can do. I don’t like sitting around stressed like this.”

 

**.:. X .:.**

 

After some time, Bucky and Steve left after their meeting with Fury.

Bucky comes into their floor to an odd sight that makes him freeze and take a couple of steps back. If he knew there were visitors then the AI would’ve warn him.

He’s sure the AI is enjoying the moment right now, despite the fact that it’s a ‘computer’ it’s an A.I.. Artificial _Intelligence._ That thing is smart and the more it interacts with others and observes, it learns more.

It? Bucky even feels the need to refer the computer as him or his name.

Bucky curses, wishing he had time to mentally prep his mind to meet with strangers.

Great, where’s Steve at when he needs him. He’s better with people. He’s a people person.

He’s Captain America for god's sake.

This is Stark’s tower. Avenger’s tower.

So why is there currently an old lady in their kitchen cooking?

Did he miss something?

Surely he did.

Bucky can just turn around and march back into there and ask them.

Or even better.

Bucky bails. Let someone else deal with it. He’s going to go and find someone that always knows what’s going on.

 

**.:.**

 

Alright, so he finds Natasha and she fills him in on what was going on. Steve is with Tony and he’s sure the man is going to fill Steve on what had happened.

“We left him for not even a full twenty four hours and now he’s in the _I.C.U because his lungs aren’t working?”_ Bucky asks incredulously.

“Having powers always have their downsides. I think people tend to forget about that a lot,” Clint says. He pauses for a moment as a thought comes to mind. “Wait, so if someone were to febreeze him will that be bad too?”

“With how strong it is and after it diffuses in a room and still be strong i take that as a yes,” Natasha answers him. She continues giving her attention back to Bucky, “We had to go in and check up on him. Thankfully Jarvis was able to send a transfer request and grant it. No blood work had been drawn either, they were waiting on the Parkers to come in to do it.”

Bucky resorts to pinching the bridge of his nose. Nearby, Clint just starts laughing to himself. Natasha and Bucky give him a look.

“You nailed down the stressed out mom look, right down to the pinch,” Clint says to Bucky. “Wife always does that when the kids and i do something stupid.”

“Mainly you,” Natasha scoffs.

“How long do you think it’ll be until the kid wakes?” Bucky asks Natasha.

“With his superhealing, not for long but with Peter’s circumstances i honestly don’t know for sure. There hasn’t been much research at all for hybrids like Peter to estimate for. Well, research on the willing that is. We’d have to hack Hydra and dig deep to see what they have.”

“Waiting game part dos,” Clint says, twirling a drumstick on one hand. “How much you wanna bet Steve is going to have his _This is my fault_ face.”

“My bet’s on Bruce for that. He _is_ the doctor,” she raises a brow at him.”

“Technically, so is Stark.” Clint says, causing Natasha to scrunch her face. She had never thought of Tony that way. Tony an actual doctor though?

“That’s weird, don’t call him doctor.”

“Dr. Stark?”

“Yes, stop.”

“Dr. Stark.”

“Clint.”

“Dr. Stark.”

“ _Clint.”_

“Dr. Stark.”

“I’ll feed you to the death worm.”

“S’not real.”

“...”

“C’mon ya have to tell me, Nat.” Clint looks over to her. Natasha just has a knowing smile as she sips her tea. “It’s not real is it?”

“You’ll find out if it’s real or not.”

“ _C’mon.”_

She shrugs and smiles into her tea.

Bucky rolls his eyes.

“So how long are they staying?”  Bucky asks, crossing his arms as he leans on the wall.

“Peter’s uncle will probably leave either tomorrow or the day after because of work, but i’m pretty positive his aunt isn’t going anywhere until Peter is up and healthy again along with answers. Cho is coming soon so i’m sure her along with Bruce can come up with something that will cover Peter.” Something Natasha says causes Clint to tense a little bit until he relaxes a nanosecond later. He has no doubt Natasha spots it as well.

They both choose not to mention anything though.

Bucky gives a quick glance to Natasha, making eye contact before looking away.

“It’s nice to know an old couple can make you tuck your tail and run,” Clint grins at Bucky, who glares back at him.

“Have you approached them yet?” Bucky says, to which Clint’s grin drops immediately.

“I can’t, they already saw my face--”

“Excuses.”

“He does have a point,” Natasha murmurs. Both men turn to her, not entirely knowing who she meant had a point.

The woman doesn’t bother to say anything and walks off, leaving the two men confused.  


**.:. X .:.**

 

Helen sighs as she sips her tea and continues to type on her laptop. Having receive a call from Tony and him practically throwing money for her to come and fully examine a kid all of a sudden had surprise her. She honestly didn’t need to be bribed at all and when he had mention his worries for a kid she immediately agreed to fly over. That and she gets a breather being away from the lab back at Seoul. Since the Ultron fiasco her precious workers that survived the aftermath have been quite protective. Especially--

“Sunbae-nim, are you sure you won’t be needing any assistance overseas? You can send anything over and we’ll be happy to look over--” a video feed pops up in front of her, expanding from one side of the jet to another. It was a bright and friendly junior of hers, a young man with black hair, tied back in short ponytail.

“That won’t be necessary. It’s strictly confidential and rather personal for Mr. Stark,” Helen waves off.

The young man groans under his breath. “Again with the mysteries, Sunbae-nim! Most Seniors that have many juniors would love to boss around. I feel like I’m not doing much to help you. You can surely trust us with whatever you are doing.”

“Joon-Seok, If you’re worried about being unhelpful enough, the basement garden needs weeding, collect them and make note of the difference this time.”

“Sunbae-nim, please--”

“Nope!” Helen grins at the large hologram feed. She gestures a shooing motion to the young man, who whines at his pending doom. He hates that task the most. It would teach him to be a little too nosy.

“I’ll get to it then. Be careful, please, Sunbae-nim.”

“You too, I heard Hae-Ryung is lurking around there, see that she gets some actual daylight when you find her?”

“Will do!” Joon-Seok salutes and the video feed cuts.

Helen goes back to sipping her tea, only to find it empty. Again.

She sets the cup down as she taps a few buttons and pulls up a feed on the cradle. Perhaps she didn’t need to bring it, but with the limited knowledge Tony had given her she brought it just in case. Everything is running alright.

With a few more hours to kill she decides to take a nap for the rest of the flight.

 

**.:. X .:.**

 

Steve arrives on his floor and only a few steps out of the elevator and the smell of cookies fill the air, stirring confusion from the man.

Who is baking cookies?

The soft hum coming from the kitchen area draws him in. Steve is sure whoever is in there isn’t a threat because Jarvis would have said something.

That and cookies.

He rounds the corner just as a lady turns around to grab some salt in front of Steve, instantly yelping in surprise. She holds a hand to her chest.

“Oh dear, don’t sneak up on an old lady like that!” she says. She takes a moment to compose herself.

“Sorry about that Ma’am, but...what...are you doing here…exactly?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I’m May Parker, Peter’s aunt. He had a terrible accident and Mr. Stark is flying in a doctor to help find out what's wrong with him.” Steve’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Wait-- _Peter_? What happened?”

“One of the kids at school sprayed some body spray that was really toxic and Peter had a terrible reaction to it in the locker room. His lungs weren’t working and had to be put on some machines,” May repeats solemnly. “I’m sorry for the mess, stress baking is a bad habit of mine.” a ding went off and the lady rushes to the oven with some mitts on. She pulls out a pan of cookies, placing them next to the two other full sheets of cookies.

Steve wants to ask Peter’s aunt for more info but the sight at the lady stress baking makes him stop.

“Um--Steve Rogers Ma’am,” Steve introduces himself.

“It’s nice to meet you Mr. Rogers, is this your kitchen i’m using?” Steve shakes his head.

“No, it’s the main kitchen that we have with all the supplies if we want to cook or make something.”

“I hope you don’t mind me being here. My husband went to sleep and i really can’t sleep at all knowing my boy isn’t waking yet,” she says as she starts shoving cookies onto one pan when they cooled off.

“I got to meet your nephew over the weekend when he stayed here and i can say you’ve raised a an amazing young man,” Steve says. “Peter’s strong, just like the woman and man who raised him,” he smiles. “I know Peter will be alright, we’ll make sure of it.”

May tears up and smiles at the words Steve spoke.

“Thank you, it means a lot to hear you say that. Oh! Help yourself, there's plenty…” she says, looking at how much she made. “I probably overdid it…”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry. Those will probably be gone by tomorrow.”

 

**.:. X .:.**

 

Tony slumps into the back seat of the car. If there is one thing everyone can simultaneously agree on Tony is that he hates meetings.

He hates them with passion.

The meetings are for the his company, and since he still IS the owner and Pepper the C.E.O, he still can’t skip out on meetings that need him there. Primarily it’s just a bunch of money lusting people that try and buy him into looking into their company, and other people try and convince him to lend his tech to their company believing its for the better.

And there’s always gotta be one person from the military to talk and convince them. No matter how much Rhodey tells them that Tony won’t invest, they like to think they have a chance.

So Tony spends most of the time hacking into whoever’s system and finding out their actual plans. Typical crap weapons.

Other times he had meetings with people to discuss projects that he had promised and well, he has to keep up with that promise.

Then most of the time its just his staff trying to get him to delegate more time to the smaller sections of his company and to up the security guard’s physique. Happy can only do so much and the guards are taking advantage of the cafeteria food.

Honestly he really does, and even though Natasha and Clint roam around his building a lot, they are agents and can’t stay there forever. He’d been also ignoring smaller sections of his company but they do so well and rarely complain he just left them as is. Maybe he needs to pop in and do more thorough inspections.

Even if Pepper is the C.E.O, its still Stark Industries, and he IS Tony Stark. No loophole there.

He’s been spending too much time in his workshop and with the avengers.

Then there’s Brucie bear freaking out about the kid and honestly that’s new water for him. Technology he has no problem with but a genetically altered cross species kid thats recently sprung on them.

He’s still in awe when he sees the kid on the ceiling to be honest.

He’s glad Helen is flying in to help, and the two can really dive deep and find out more about Peter so they can help and prevent anything like this happening in the future. If the kid is having sensory overload, he’ll need something to help block the sounds and sights. As for smell, he’s not quite sure on that.

For sounds and sight he has a few ideas in mind, he just hopes the kid doesn’t mind them.

He takes his sunglasses off and observes them. Special lens with special coating. He fingers the nosepads.

Hmm…

Ideas pop into his mind.

“Happy, do you think you can stop by Warby Parker?” Tony asks.

“That glasses shop?”

“Yup, I have a few new ideas. Oh, and McDonalds.”

“Uh, it’s night time?” Happy checks the time. “Most shops close in fifteen minutes.”

Tony laughs.

“They’ll be open,” he says as he texts the manager of the closest location to them. Happy just shrugs.

“On it Boss.”  


**.:. X .:.**

 

The landing for Helen is smooth. A few turbulence here and there and the cradle’s condition is perfectly fine.

Bruce is out there already waiting for her arrival, along with three others. She recognizes Barton and Romanov, but the last she doesn’t quite know.

“ **_Hello, Ms. Cho. I hope your flight was well?”_ **

Helen perks up at the AI’s sudden voice. “Ah, Jarvis! Yes, it was fine. Is Tony here?”

**_“No, Sir made a stop and will be here in about an hour or so.”_ **

“Thank you,” Helen says. She waits for the door to open and for the okay so she can be let off.

As she steps down, Clint hurries to her side and offers a helping hand, which she smiles and thanks.

“How is your arm?”

“Been perfect, you shouldn’t even have to ask,” he says with a grin.

 “A pleasure to meet you Dr. Banner. How is everything so far?” she asks when she approaches the others. She mainly asks Bruce.

“We’ll take care of the cradle, head on inside,” Natasha says, nodding to the loft. She ushers Bucky to help while Clint and Bruce head on inside.

Clint leads the way. “So how much do you know?”

“Tony didn’t tell me much, just that a boy really needs help. Knowing Tony, I assume it was a serious issue,” she says. She follows the men into an elevator where they start going down. It didn’t take very long to reach their floor.

They step out and take an immediate left, and in a series of hallways reach to their destination. Before heading in, Bruce stops in front of the door.

“I know I shouldn’t have to say this, but everything stays in this tower. Tony probably already addressed this matter when he called you, but I just want to make sure,” Bruce stares right into her eyes.

Helen stares right back. “Nothing leaves this tower. I came here to help.” and with that, Bruce nods and opens the door.

Honestly, Helen expects more. Something along the lines of a kid on his deathbed, perhaps Tony or one of the other’s kid and they just want the best advantage.

Upon entering, she spots an unconcious kid with a tube down his throat. The odd thing she doesn’t see is an I.V.

“Why isn’t he hooked up to any I.V.? Surely he needs it,” Helen asks as she makes her way to Peter’s side.

“It’d be pointless at this moment until we know more. A few days ago Tony had a group of children tour his tower. Jarvis had let us know that there was something odd that needed our attention. Jarvis detected radiation coming from the kid after we brought the kid up here it went downhill from there,” Bruce explains. He pauses to bring up the files they have so far on Peter. “His radiation levels started to raise to dangerous levels and he started to change.”

“And judging from the radiation levels mutation was bound to happen. He’s very lucky he has no physical mutations. Did you find out the cause of the mutation?”

“Yes, actually.” Bruce pulls up a photo of the spider. “Peter’s school went to Oscorps prior to coming here. He and two others snuck away and Peter said his friend made him go into a room filled with Spiders that was under a passcode. One of the spiders fell on him and bit him. I delved into research and the spider is a genetically altered radioactive spider. Genetically altered in a way that there’s more than a handful of spider DNA in this one tiny spider.”

“I see why you would want to keep this under wraps. He’s--”

“Yeah, I know. Practically bruised Captain America,” Bruce mumbles the last part. Bruce takes the time to explain what it changed in Peter.

“Alright, so i got the basic rundown of what happened, so how did he end up here?”

“I was stupid to not even put two and two together. Super strength and the fact that his eye sight is enhanced--sensory overload would be a big probable obstacle for Peter. It gets triggered when he uses his powers, but I doubt it would be that easy for him. When he was in the locker room after gym class, one of the boys sprayed a body spray--Axe-- and it triggered a bad reaction in Peter. Nosebleeds, fainting, and a seizure. Some say he had a asthma attack or what it sounded like.”

“What’s the state of his lungs now?” She asks as she goes through the information. Bruce pulls up the photo.

“Lungs are damaged. Somehow the fumes affect both layers of the pleura but due to Peter’s enhanced healing, it’s slowly fixing itself. It healed his trachea already. The inside of his nose is still healing as well.”

“I don’t like the fact that some parts of his lungs look dangerously thin. Even if his body is healing itself it’s definitely not good if a hole forms. Enhanced healing would cause complications for surgery.”

**_“The cradle is ready, doctors,”_ ** Jarvis announces.

“Perfect, Clint would you do the honors?” Bruce asks. The spy nods and steps besides Bruce and scoops Peter in his arms. Bruce is beside him and pulls the ventilator along. Helen is in front and follows Jarvis’ directions.

They had to head to a more private area where it was more secured.

Upon reaching the floor, they meet Natasha and the other person Helen still doesn’t know yet.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Helen Cho, from U-GIN Genetic Research Facility,” she stretches a hand out to greet the man. The stranger nods and shakes her hand.

“You can call me Barnes,” he says. “Everything is ready.”

Helen thanks the two and approaches her cradle, setting everything up.

“Peter should still be hooked to a ventilator since his lungs aren’t working, but we’ll check up on him every couple of hours and see how he’s doing,” she says. She ushers them over.

Bruce unhooks each cord from the ventilator and hand them to Helen, naming each cord. As soon as its alright, Clint carefully lowers Peter into the cradle.

He imagines himself being in there for a quick moment. The kid should be up and at it soon enough.

“The cradle should scan Peter’s body and pinpoint the issue and fix the damaged tissue. During the time the cradle is printing, we should be able to find out the depth of the change to his body. This way, he can be more prepared in the future.”

“Tricky thing with mutation is that you’ll never know what could possibly happen next,” Natasha says.

“Unfortunately, that’s true,” Helen sighs. She taps a few buttons after successfully hooking Peter up and the hatch closes. Lights hum on and the cradle gets to working. “I’ve been meaning to ask, but where are his parents? Surely they’d like to have some updates.”

The room went silent, until Natasha spoke up.

“Passed away, his aunt and uncle are looking after him now. His aunt stressed baked away and finally went to sleep with her husband thanks to Steve. They don’t know of the changes Peter’s going through,” she tells her. Helen scrunches her face in confusion.

“They should know what he’s going through. If anything, them not knowing would probably make things worse. It’s also not best stress wise for both parties,” Helen says. Natasha shrugs.

“We have natural born mutants here in the U.S. and several of their parents have opted to ‘cure’ them or out right abandon them. Or worse. We’re doing what we feel is best until Peter is old enough or if he feels the need to tell them when he feels like it. I would want to keep the knowledge away from them but it’s ultimately Peter’s decision in the end,” Natasha finishes. Helen just looks down at Peter.

She hopes Peter doesn’t opt to keep it away from them and try and handle things by himself. Even if he has the entire Avengers to aid him, the fear of rejection from one’s own family is a terrible feeling to cope with.

_He’s just a kid after all._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Entirely sorry about the lack of update. I've been stressing over a broken fridge, shitty third party workers and customer service and so much shit. FYI DON'T BUY A FUCKING SAMSUNG FRIDGE. They shit. Complete shit. 
> 
> Anyways, I did a lot of research for this particular chapter. I hope I got the Korean pronouns and such right if anyone spots any error let me know.
> 
> Question: Where do you stand in the last bit of Natasha's part? Do you think it's wrong to keep this kind of secret away from parents/guardians? Even if it IS Peter's choice, this type of secret has serious health risks too. Do you think the Avengers have any say or right to keep Peter's aunt and uncle in the dark?
> 
> Let me hear your thoughts!


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kinda sorry for not uploading so long. Then kinda not cause i've been dealing with a lot of shit that made things difficult.
> 
> To sum up:
> 
> \--My 15 year old chihuahua died on May 23rd at 1050pm and she died in my arms. Limp and everything. Even peed. It was devastating and it broke me. Luckily i had my best friend drive to my house and comfort me cause i didn't know what to do and it was in the middle of the night. She was just too old and it was the end of her journey here. 
> 
> \--My grandma's kidney was in bad shape and it required me to be there for her nearly all times so we can help her. She was in a lot of pain. Drink plenty of water ya'll. Be healthy!! She's a whole lot better now, thank god.
> 
> It was just too much mental stress that i couldn't really be in the mood to write. And i miss my damn dog. I'm a whole lot better now.

**.:. X .:.**

 

_Peter is about four and a half. He’s turning five soon._

_Lately he notices a bit of tension between his mom and dad. He’s seen his mom alone in her office not quite focused on the paperwork in front of her. Other times he spots her reading the same page for nearly a while. Shes a fast reader, he knows._

_She tries to ignore whatever it is and work together with dad._

_He likes those days, because the door was open and he gets to sit with them and watch them work. It involves lots of reading, where he sits in his mom’s lap and scan the pages she’s reading and not understanding anything at all._

_Other times he sits in a chair and his dad practices a speech to him and he sees his dad scribbling notes and writing things on the chalkboard, talking to Peter as if he completely understood everything._

**_THUMP_ **

_A sudden noise stops his dad mid sentence and they both look up. His mom does the same from the desk by the window._

_“Mom?”_

_“It’s probably that family of racoons again,” his dad says. “You want to check on it, or should I?”_

_“I’ll do it, stay with Peter. It’s probably nothing,” she says as she stands and makes her way out._

_“Don’t worry chap. I won’t let them bite you,” he smiles. “In the meantime, how about some Dmitri Shostakovich - Waltz No. 2?” he says, putting on some music. He didn’t see anything weird by the sudden action, he always hears them play music all the time when they’re reading._

_So he doesn’t pick up on the extra thumps coming from upstairs._

_Or the fact that his dad didn’t leave the desk and his hand was under the desk the entire time._

_“Peter, how much of the periodic table have you memorized so far?” his dad asks. Peter’s face brightens, and he starts to list off._

_Peter was too busy in recounting each periodic table that he didn’t notice his dad typing quickly into the laptop, pulling up security footage of somewhere else in the house. The attic._

_And the footage showing his mom twisting around and effectively taking out intruders._

_“Ah, Offenbach. A classic,” his dad smiles as the music goes on. Peter is still listing and now throwing the atomic numbers in. “Continue Peter,” he says, and the next footage shows an intruder in their current hallways. His dad pulls out a suppressed gun, something Peter didn’t notice at all, and quietly heads towards the door._

_He quickly opens it and shoots, but with the climax of the song, Peter didn’t hear the **tack** sound. _

_“Honey are you alright up there?”_

_“Yes, we’ll need to call animal control later!” he hears his mom shout. From the feed on the laptop, his mom is standing around several bodies. A few squirming in probable pain._

_A few are dead._

_And Peter notices absolutely **nothing.**_

_But Peter standing in the corner of the room, behind the desk and seeing a tiny version of himself completely oblivious to everything going on around him. Peter in the corner notices everything._

_Peter in the corner is beyond confused._

_It’s clearly a memory but he’s not in his body._

_Out of body?_

_He’s not quite sure_.

_Peter isn’t quite sure of things anymore._

He gasps, waking up from his dream—memory—his breathing became erratic, and the scene before him instantly flashes and Peter wakes up—promptly bonking his head on thick glass. He hears a crack and groans, not knowing if the crack is from his head or whatever he just headbutted.

Peter moves to clutch his head in pain but finds that he can’t. There’s two very large bars wrapping around his midsection and it prevents him from moving any further. His head is a bit fuddled, and he doesn’t know where he is.

Well.

Where he isn’t, and the last thing he remembers is him talking to Ned in the locker room.

His vision clears up and he notices the mask that’s around his mouth, a band wrapped around his head. Due to his small stature, he has a bit of room in whatever...container...bed he’s in.

Actual he’s not very sure where he is.

Fuck.

Fuck.

FuckFuckFuckFuckFuck.

He looks around from the glass in front of him and notices he’s in a lab, a lab that looks quite like Tony’s. Is he back at the tower?

It’s dark, minimal lights are on and aside from that there’s nothing Peter can point out.

There’s movement from the corner of his eye and he spots a woman approaching quickly. Her eyes are wide, maybe surprise at the fact Peter’s in here?

Or awake?

Peter doesn’t pay attention to the blinking red screen in which she quickly smashes her finger on, and not a second later a hissing sound comes from inside whatever tube he’s in. The bars across his midsection opens and curls back down under him. He goes to remove the mask, but the lady stops him.

“Wait, please leave that on. I’m Dr. Helen Cho, Mr. Stark has asked me to come and help,” she quickly explains, and the tension in his body releases. He sits up from the bed he’d been sleeping on.

“Wha--what happened--”

“Sorry, can you tell me what your name is?” she asks.

“Uh--Peter Parker,” he introduces himself.

“Age?”

“Fifteen.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I-uh-I was at school, talking to Ned after PE in the locker room and I can’t remember much after that,” he tells her. She smiles.

“Sorry, I just wanted to make sure your mental state is alright. Some boys sprayed body spray, Axe, and due to your new genetic mutation, you had a severe reaction to it. It’s been about two days. You healed quick, but you were still asleep,” she says and she goes around behind him on the machine and type something. “Since you were healing so well, I didn’t want to disrupt you from your sleep until you were ready.”

It takes a few moments to realize what she said.

“Whoa, whoa--wait. Y-you know? About--” he gestures to all of him. She nods.

“Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner were very thorough in telling me what happened. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me,” she smiles. Peter sits up. “Alright, your lungs were very damaged from the toxic chemicals and the cradle healed your lungs. The mask you have on is blocking any more scents from out here entering while you breathe, just in case you’re still sensitive. How are you feeling?” she asks.

Peter pauses and checks his body. Flexing this and that. At least this time he has a shirt on. A bit tight fitting than he’s comfortable with but he’s not complaining.

“I feel fine? Like I feel a bit sleepy, but I just woke up...um...how long was I out?” he asks nervously. Helen gives him a sympathetic look.

“Not for long, It’s about five in the evening on Tuesday.”

Peter whips his head up. “Wait--the next day?!”

“Your Aunt and Uncle are both here. They don’t entirely know the true reason to your reaction quite yet…” Helen pauses. “Peter, are you going to tell them?”

The question surprises Peter. “Well, Mr. Rogers said I can’t--”

“I’m not talking about Captain or anybody else. I’m asking you, Peter. Are you-- _do_ you want to tell them?” she corrects herself. Peter sits there in silence.

He did think about it. Telling them. He half expects them to throw him out, or worse.

 _Be_ _afraid_.

Peter would rather deal with anger than to experience the two be terrified of him.

“I... I don’t know…” Peter admits as he picks at the hem of his shorts. “I’ve thought about it…” Peter couldn’t come up with any explanation, so he just shrugs his shoulders.

Choosing to drop it for now, Helen offers him a warm smile.

A few moments later, the door open and Bruce rushes in. He looks as if he just woke up from a nap.

“Peter, bud--hey. How are you feeling?”

“Like I just woke up from a nap I shouldn't have taken. Well rested but the anxiety of ‘how long was I out’ is there,” Peter shoots off.

“Look, I’m so sorry. I really should’ve made it a stronger point to the others of trying to get you in the lab and to run a few examinations on you. I didn’t want to overwhelm you and figured we can reschedule,” Bruce says as he goes around to check the screens that displayed Peter’s health. “Your stats are perfectly normal now.”

“So, what exactly happened? Dr. Cho said I had a bad reaction?”

“Sensory Overload, do you know what that is?” Helen asks.

“I can kinda take a guess from the name,” Peter says before catching himself. “Sorry, I’m just...” Peter’s shoulders droop down.

“It’s fine. I’m just glad you’re feeling better. But yes, that's essentially what happened. The strong scent from the body spray was too much for your nose to handle and it overloaded your other senses as well. This can happen to anybody, not specifically mutated ones. Normal humans can have a bad reaction as well, so this won’t pose as something odd that would point out your mutation,” Helen tells him.

“The good thing about this is that just about anybody can have a seizure for any unknown reason. If it happens again and again, not that I’m hoping for it to, then Dr. Cho can put it down as epilepsy,” Bruce says.

“Does this mean I can’t have any fun?” Peter realizes. “Like, I know I’m not a party person, but It is high school, and you need to at least go to a couple of parties or you’ll be branded as a loser and I really don’t want that.”

“Parties are fine, raves maybe not too much,” Helen says. “Or any clubs. Those are a no-no.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I can’t raise my heart rate up too much,” Bruce says, hoping it cheer him up somehow.

“Same as my Aunt and Uncle and most elderly people I know,” Peter says. Bruce just grins at him.

“Also, what am I in exactly?” Peter asks. “Dr. Cho mention it being a cradle?”

“Oh! I can explain what it does. Let me remove that from you, I think you’re fine now,” Helen gently removes the mask off him and goes on to explain the cradle.

Bruce gets a feeling that Peter asks not because he’s curious, but to keep his mind off something. He didn’t miss the boy’s small change of attitude, but Bruce can hardly blame him.

 

**.:.**

 

There were lots of crying, mainly from Aunt May and Peter had guilt tears because he didn’t want to tell them anything.

Not yet. Maybe someday he would. He knows they’ll be angry at him for keeping something this big from them but Peter’s not ready.

Hell, Peter isn’t ready for about one hundred percent of everything that’s happened to him but life sucks.

“So, I would strongly suggest anything with a toxic smell or something than can be very overpowering to be removed. He definitely will need a higher calorie and protein diet because he is a tad bit small--”

“Muuurgh” Peter moans out at the offensive comment. He’s pouting. Yes, pouting. As soon as he could, he had his phone in hand and checked his messages. He pulled up his twitter feed and promptly chucks his phone back into his bag (he needs to thank Harry big time) and falls back into the bed in the infirmary, curling around Aunt May. May immediately without hesitation and attention still on Dr. Cho, runs her fingers through his hair.

Everyone had seen what happened to him. Someone recorded it and uploaded it.

Aunt May is an angel and savior when she asks Dr. Cho for a doctor’s excuse for Peter to stay home a few days and recuperate a bit more before immediately going back to school. Bless her, he loves her so much. She’s a saint on earth.

Now he can sulk at home and hope that the incident can die down.

He really hopes so.

He has the weird memory dream thing happen and he doesn’t need people at school gawking at him and make fun of him for what happened.

Oh god he just realizes he’s probably going to get a lecture from both Aunt May and Uncle Ben and Steve when he gets the chance.

Peter groans out again, and Aunt May’s fingers work like magic.

A while later, Dr. Cho sends them home with a list of things that need to be thrown away or be wary of. Anything with strong scents, etc. He remembers Aunt May keeping receipts on things she bought so she can just exchange them for something more sensitive.

He’s sure Aunt May won’t rest until its all done and safe, so he’s going to help as much as she’ll let him.

He almost gets away from the tower scott free from any embarrassment until he spots Steve on the way out. The man is quick and meets him at the end of the elevator before Happy picks them up. Steve just tousles his hair and simply tells Peter to be careful—to which Peter nods in embarrassment.

Steve waves at Aunt May and Uncle Ben before Happy pulls up, taking them away.

 

**.:. X .:.**

 

It’s been about two days since he woke up.

He tries not to think about it.

So, he busies himself with cleaning his room. If he doesn’t do it then Aunt May will and he honestly doesn’t want her to do that. She’s already doing so much. He’s about halfway through until the dreary weather caught his eye. Well, not really the dreary part, but the sunshine peeking through the dark clouds and it’s only about five. He finds himself sitting there, upside down on the ceiling watching the view. He would sit outside his window on the roof peeking out from his window but Aunt May would flip.

Uncle Ben had already made it back home safe and sound and cleaning out the last of the stuff in their basement. Peter would gladly help but Aunt May had banned him from any hard labor herself.

As he sits there, his mind wanders back to his dream from this morning.

He honestly doesn’t want to think about it, but apparently his mind has other plans.

He wants to assume that what he saw before he woke up was a dream, something his brain made up to cope with stress, but it didn’t seem like a pleasant dream.

If it were a memory, why didn’t he remember it? Frankly he doesn’t remember a lot of things from his childhood prior to coming to live with his aunt and uncle. One of the special children’s psychiatrists says it was because losing his parents had been traumatic to him his mind coped with trying to forget so the pain would lessen.

Or something.

Peter doesn’t know, but what he does know is that that most definitely did not feel like a dream. It felt familiar.

Was it a memory then?

He really doesn’t want to ask his aunt and uncle for even they won’t know the answer to.

“Boys! I’m going next door for a bit, if you need anything just come over!” Aunt May hollers from downstairs. He then hears footsteps coming up the stairs and coming towards him, causing him to flail a bit and drop down in a heap. He barely manages to sit up right when she comes in. “And Peter dear, don’t push yourself too much, alright?” She sees him on the ground sitting with a smile. “And don’t you go down in the basement. I don’t want you getting sick, alright?”

Peter sighs.

“Got it Aunt May. Don’t forget to bring an umbrella!” he tells her when she makes her way back downstairs.

“I won’t!” she says and a few moments later she’s finally gone.

Peter waits a few moments until he deems it safe to scramble up and fling himself (almost literally) out his door, softly landing on wall to wall and hops downstairs in one quick leap.

He can’t just sit and do nothing. He needs to do something.

He’s too antsy to sit and do homework or read.

He makes his way to the kitchen and to the basement, where he spots Uncle Ben looking through old boxes of junk.

“Hey Uncle Ben, do you need any help?” Peter asks as he slowly makes his way down. The old man looks up from some old magazines and huffs when he sees Peter rolling up his pant legs.

“Came down as soon as she left,” he mutters. “Nothing kid, just getting lost in all the nostalgia,” he says as he gestures to the small mess around him. “Feel free to pick a box.”

He grins as he starts looking through.

A lot of them were Aunt May’s cross-stitching supplies, old recipe books, more of Uncle Ben’s bowling trophies. He of course puts up the boxes of photo albums on top of the desk and out of reach from the water.

He opens the box to find them intact, undamaged from the water.

He finds an old album of May’s and finds himself curious. He opens the cover and it’s a bunch of photos back when Aunt May and Uncle Ben were a bit younger. Seem to be around their thirties, the date had been smudged a bit.

The photo looks as if they’re somewhere big and fancy outdoors. Like a manor. It’s a few of May’s family members, he recognizes Ben and a few others he doesn’t recognize. He takes one photo out and flips the back, seeing a few names.

_\--Jan, April, William, Claudia, Claire, Albert, Johnny, Ben—_

He knows of the first four names, and obviously Ben’s but three he doesn’t recognize. He quickly snaps a picture of the old photo and the names and puts it back.

Aunt May doesn’t talk much about her family, and he doesn’t press on.

He flips through a few more photos, and the man he thinks is Johnny pops up a few times and then he’s gone. Then photos of May and Ben’s wedding show, and the two look ecstatic as ever.

Peter closes the album and safely puts it back in the box. He puts it near the keep stack by the stairs and continues searching through more boxes.

He picks up a large box next to the desk to move and the bottom fell through.

Grumbling, he picks up the objects and throws them in a bin to look through later. It was a bunch Peter’s old toys. A ball rolls under the desk and he bends to reach for it and spots something interesting that made his entire brain pause for a moment.

He scrunches his face up as he sees what it is, an old brown leather briefcase sitting under the desk, seemingly tucked away and currently gathering dust.

Its not the discovery of said briefcase, but the initials on it by the latch.

**R P**

Richard Parker.

His dad.

Peter then remembers something foggy. Sitting in the backseat, it was at night and rainy. He sees his dad in the passenger’s seat and the lights blurs pass them. His dad opens his briefcase to take a file out.

What’s the briefcase doing here?

Peter reaches down and picks it up gently, as if it would crumble away.

“Oh, Peter I told you to not come down here—” Aunt May suddenly says but her voice doesn’t reach him. His attention is still on the briefcase. “ _Ben!”_ she snaps at her husband and the man looks up from looking through something, face slightly dropping at what he sees in his nephew’s hands. He glances at May, who looks worried. Ben lets out a quick chuckle.

“Almost forgot all about that thing,” he starts. “It was your dad’s. He asked us to keep it safe for him.” Ben makes his way towards Peter and May. “He saw it in the window in a leather shop over on ninth avenue. What’s a nineteen year old got to do with a briefcase?” he chuckles again. “And guess who sold it to him?”

Peter looks up at him and shrugs as he looks through the bag. “I don’t know—”

“Your mother! That’s how they met,” Ben smiles.

“Wait--he asked you to keep it safe for him. I mean there’s nothing here, have you looked in here—theres nothing here,” Peter starts to babble. He opens the briefcase and spots a clipped newspaper.

He knows the man in the photo next to his dad. Spoke to him, actually.

Dr. Curt Connors, from Oscorp.

Its quiet for a few moments until Aunt May snaps them out of it.

“C’mon, c’mon! Our lovely neighbor made us a casserole for dinner, so I want the two of you upstairs cleaning up! C’mon, Peter before you catch something again!” she ushers the two up.

Peter glances at her and nods before rushing upstairs and towards his room. When he finally left, Ben glances at May. The woman holding a hand to her mouth in slight shock.

They had completely forgotten about the briefcase.

 

**.:.**

 

If only he had found this before the spider incident, he would’ve worn his dad’s old glasses. He wouldn’t mind removing his contacts out and wearing them.

Peter sets them on his shelf, so he wouldn’t accidentally step on them and focuses back on the things he found in the briefcase he lined up. A few pens, a calculator, a pager he thinks, a few coins and the newspaper clipping he found earlier.

The last thing he finds is an oscorp ID badge.

He breathes.

He doesn’t know how to react.

He should be happy to find something of his dad, but it just leads to more mysteries unsolved. He thumbs the photo of his father before setting it down.

This couldn’t be it—keep it safe for him—for what? For a bunch of things that seemed like he just emptied out a junk desk drawer out into his briefcase? At least he has some clue—Dr. Connors. He should know _something_ about his dad.

But how to meet him again? He can’t just randomly walk into oscorp.

Should he ask Harry’s dad? But the man seems too busy. He should ask Harry instead.

Alright—half a plan thought out. Ask Harry, maybe beg him for info on Dr. Connors, where he lives so he can talk to the man. He’s positive May or Ben aren’t much help here and the avengers will tell him no.

He honestly wants to find out for himself.

Back to the briefcase.

What is so important about this that his dad stressed to Ben to keep it safe for him?

There has to be something in here.

He opens the flap and searches the insides, the tiny pockets, practically turns the entire thing upside down and shakes the darn thing and there’s nothing left.

He flips it to the back, finding a zipper and opens that, reaches a hand inside and finds half a cigar. His dad smoked? Still, he sets it along with the other things he’s found so far.

He runs his fingers inside, feeling the spine of the leather briefcase. A little bumpy. He runs his fingers up and along the lining of it until one of his finger dips down and caught under the lining of the back.

Then he feels something—papers.

Peter then runs his hand until a secret compartment of the back is revealed. He pulls out the contents. It was a folder.

Peter pauses for a moment and glances up at his door. The boy scrambles half way up and reaches to close the door. He reaches for the lock switch he made and locked his door.

Sitting back down, he opens the folder.

Was this his dad’s research papers?

One side contains a numerous amount of sequences clipped together and blueprints. The other were notes. A lot of half worked equations and some scribbled out. A few symbols that look familiar to him. At the bottom of the page on the front and circled were the words ‘ _Decay Rate Algorithm’_ and underneath it was an equation.

Heavy footsteps approaching his door knocks him out of his stupor. The boy shoves the folder inside the briefcase and tosses it in his desk. He then flips the switch to the lock on and mixes the things he had lined up around and goes back to the mess he left earlier and resumes cleaning.

There was finally knocking at his door, and his Uncle calls out to him.

“Peter?”

“Yeah?” he instantly replies, and winces when the reply is a bit too quick. Ben opens his door.

“You okay?” He asks as soon as he spots Peter. Then pauses as he looks at the mess. “Wow, you are really reorganizing your room, huh kiddo?” Ben looks around at his room in a mess.

Peter scratches his head. “Uhh, yeah I kinda got carried away. Figured I have a bit too much junk in my room. And I’m fine.”

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Ben asks. Peter pauses from his junk pile and looks at his uncle. He nods and the man comes in and closes the door.

Seeing the mess, he sits at the computer chair, picking up a rubix cube to mess with.

“Listen, um…I don’t have much education—you know that Peter. Hell, I stopped being able to help with your homework since you were ten,” he laughs at himself. He tosses the cube in the air, catching it easily. “Look, what I’m trying to say is that I know it’s been rough for you without your parents and I know we don’t talk much about them—”

Peter cuts him off with a shrug as he picks up some random computer parts. “Hey, its alright. I get it. I’m not the only one coping with their loss.”

Ben smiles a little. “It’s still not alright. I honestly wish I could change it, but I can’t,” he sighs. “Look Peter, that newspaper clipping you found—that man next to your dad is his partner. Dr. Curt Connors. They used to work with each other a lot. They were really close,” Ben reveals. “He did show up again, a few days after that night and he came to our house, asking if your father had left anything with us at all. We told him the only thing he dropped off here was you, his son and took off. He kept asking for something else, but we always gave him the same answer. Kinda pissed us both off. After what just happened the only thing he was most worried about what whatever else Richard left behind. Research studies? I don’t know. Then after that, we never saw him again. Never even called…not once, just to ask if you were alright.” Ben says as he looks down. “Go figure…I know it’s tempting to find and talk to him, but you gotta listen to me on this, Peter.” Uncle Ben looks at him sternly. “Do not _ever_ go and meet with that man alone. There is something not entirely right about him. If you really want to, we can go with you to see if you can catch him in that building.”

Now this confuses Peter. When he met him during the trip, the man seems alright.

He’s still meeting him anyways.

“What’s the point in asking him if he never bothered to come by to see how we’re doing?” Peter tosses the junk in the trash bin. “Besides, with how busy he is I doubt he’ll lend some time at all.” Peter shrugs again.

“I’m sorry Peter, I really am.”

“It’s fine, Uncle Ben. Thanks for coming up.”

“Not a problem kiddo. C’mon, lets have dinner now, your Aunt is waiting for us.” He motions for Peter to come and the boy follows along beside the man.

“You know what Uncle Ben? You’re a pretty great dad too.” Peter gives him an honest smile. Ben smiles, ruffling the boy’s hair.

“You’re too good for us, kiddo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sO.
> 
> A LOT OF THINGS HAPPENED HERE. Development. In this chapter you can recognize a lot from the Amazing-Spiderman movie of course. And sorry if the pacing is weird. I wrote half this chapter during May and stopped.
> 
> Hooray for updates.
> 
> Love you guys for being patient with me! Be safe out there!

**Author's Note:**

> Just to clarify: This is post Avengers 2.  
> +Pietro lives   
> +Vision is here as well as Jarvis because fuck it i love both so Porque no los dos?  They are doubles, or big brother little brother. Just go along with it.   
> +Bucky is saved but still has issues to work out.   
> +Steve isn’t a big idiot and told Tony what happened to his parents.   
> +Tony doesn’t hold it against Bucky because he’s not in control. (Shhhhh, just go along and don't question it.) This just gives Tony the drive to blast Hydra a hole up their ass.


End file.
